ALMA and asteroid science

When the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) is completed, it will synthesize angular resolution as fine as 5 milliarcseconds. With such resolution and ALMAʹs large number of stations and collecting area, it will be possible to rapidly map the shapes, large-scale surface features, and surface temperature distributions of the 700 largest objects in the main asteroid belt and the hundred largest Jupiter Trojans. Such information would provide great insights into the dynamics and history of the asteroid belt, and potentially determine the surface compositions of otherwise spectrally ambiguous objects.