About PANDA

PANDA estimates the visible geometric albedo of an asteroid from its phase angle and measured degree of linear polarisation. It is designed for rapid, uncertainty-aware characterisation of near-Earth objects.

Visit the ESA Near-Earth Object Coordination Centre (NEOCC) portal for complementary information on near-Earth objects, their orbits, and impact risk.

How to use it

  1. Enter the phase angle and polarisation measurement, with its uncertainty when available.
  2. Use Multi-measurement when several observations are available; PANDA combines their posterior estimates.
  3. Report the PANDA estimate with its uncertainty and retain the input measurements and calibration choice used.

Citation

If PANDA-derived results are used in a publication, presentation, or technical report, please cite the service and the work describing its calibration:

Devogèle, M., Cano, J. L., Ferrais, M., Masiero, J., Selmi, E., Borisov, G., Bagnulo, S., Bendjoya, P., Rivet, J.-P., Abe, L., Cellino, A., and Peleato, E. (2026), “Rapid Albedo Estimation of Near-Earth Objects From Single High Phase Angle Polarimetric Observation,” Europlanet Science Congress 2026, EPSC2026-331. doi:10.5194/epsc2026-331.

Suggested acknowledgement

This work made use of the PANDA web service (Polarimetric ANalysis for the Determination of the Albedo; Devogèle et al. 2026) to estimate asteroid geometric albedos from polarimetric measurements.

Acknowledgements and contact

PANDA is developed for asteroid and planetary defence research at the ESA Near-Earth Objects Coordination Centre. Questions, corrections, and suggestions are welcome at neocc@esa.int.