The shapes of primordial asteroids

The student will work with tools developed to mine the archive of SuperWASP observations for asteroid data, and combine these long term data sets with observations from other telescopes (including the opportunity to perform new observations with a variety of telescopes). The student will then use these to model the shapes of these asteroids and combine these with other available physical information (including the mass measurements from Gaia as they become available) to build up the most complete picture of the properties of the largest asteroids. The project combines traditional observing, data reduction and photometry skills with data mining in large surveys, and will include opportunities to get involved with shaping major surveys to come, such as LSST. Additionally, this project will give the chance to look at other aspects of asteroid science by further analysis of the photometry. These extra goals include studying surface reflectance properties via phase functions (including investigation of the albedo/phase function relationship) and identifying rare photometric signals such as satellite occultations/eclipses and potential impact or outburst events.