Photometric Observation of the Asteroid-Comet Transition Object 4015 Wilson-Harrington

Near-Earth asteroid-comet transition object 4015 Wilson-Harrington is a possible target of the joint European Space Agency (ESA) and Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Marco Polo sample return mission. 4015 W-H was discovered showing cometary activity by Albert G. Wilson and Robert G. Harrington at Palomar Observatory in 1949. After recovered in 1979, 4015 W-H has been observed at every apparition, it always was seen as a point source. We made time series observations for 4015 W-H using the 1.8m telescope with 2K CCD at Bohyunsan Observatory, on the nights of 2009 November 17-19. The geocentric distance of 4015 H-W was about 0.38 AU at that time. No trace of cometary activity is seen from our images. From the light curve analysis, we find a double-peaked rotational period of 2.2 hours with amplitude of 0.4 magnitude. Our result is much shorter than previous measurements of 3.6 hours (Harris & Young 1983) and 6.1 hours (Osip et al 1995). We will discuss possible origin of the period variations.