  Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs) are a key testbed for investigations into planet
formation, asteroid dynamics, and planetary defense initiatives. These studies
rely on understanding NEA sizes, albedo distributions, and regolith properties.
Simple thermal models are a commonly used method for determining these
properties, however they have inherent limitations due to the simplifying
assumptions they make about asteroid shapes and properties. With the recent
collapse of the Arecibo Telescope and a decrease of direct size measurements,
as well as future facilities such as LSST and NEO Surveyor coming online soon,
these models will play an increasingly important role in our knowledge of the
NEA population. Therefore, it is key to understand the limits of these models.
In this work we constrain the limitations of simple thermal models by comparing
model results to more complex thermophysical models, radar data, and other
existing analyses. Furthermore, we present a method for placing tighter
constraints on inferred NEA properties using simple thermal models. These
comparisons and constraints are explored using the NEA (285263) 1998 QE2 as a
case study. We analyze QE2 with a simple thermal model and data from both the
NASA IRTF SpeX instrument and NEOWISE mission. We determine an albedo between
0.05 and 0.10 and thermal inertia between 0 and 425 J m$^{-2}$ s$^{-1/2}$
K$^{-1}$. We find that overall the simple thermal model is able to well
constrain the properties of QE2, however we find that model uncertainties can
be influenced by topography, viewing geometry, and the wavelength range of data
used.
