Bibcode
Campins, Humberto; Morbidelli, Alessandro; Tsiganis, Kleomenis; de León, Julia; Licandro, J.; Lauretta, Dante
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Volume 721, Issue 1, pp. L53-L57 (2010).
Advertised on:
9
2010
Citations
74
Refereed citations
68
Description
Near-Earth asteroid (NEA) 101955 (1999 RQ36; henceforth RQ36)
is especially accessible to spacecraft and is the primary target of
NASA's OSIRIS-REx sample return mission; it is also a potentially
hazardous asteroid. We combine dynamical and spectral information to
identify the most likely main-belt origin of RQ36 and we conclude that
it is the Polana family, located at a semimajor axis of about 2.42 AU.
We also conclude that the Polana family may be the most important
inner-belt source of low-albedo NEAs. These conclusions are based on the
following results. (1) Dynamical evidence strongly favors an inner-belt,
low-inclination (2.15 AU < a < 2.5 AU and i < 10°) origin,
suggesting the ν6 resonance as the preferred (95%
probability) delivery route. (2) This region is dominated by the Nysa
and Polana families. (3) The Polana family is characterized by low
albedos and B-class spectra or colors, the same albedo and spectral
class as RQ36. (4) The Sloan Digital Sky Survey colors show that the
Polana family is the branch of the Nysa-Polana complex that extends
toward the ν6 resonance; furthermore, the Polana family
has delivered objects of the size of RQ36 and larger into the
ν6 resonance. (5) A quantitative comparison of visible and
near-infrared spectra does not yield a unique match for RQ36; however,
it is consistent with a compositional link between RQ36 and the Polana
family.
Related projects
![Image of active asteroid P/2013 R3 (CATALINA-PANSTARRS) obtained with the 10.4m GTC telescope (La Palma, Spain). The nucleus of the object is splitted in at least four fragments (bright nucleus and fragments labeled A, B, and C) that remained active after the cometary-like spitting event Project Image](/sites/default/files/styles/crop_square_2_2_to_320px/public/images/project/Imagen%20Julia.jpg?h=a20dd341&itok=Mh16lYlm)
Minor Bodies of the Solar System
This project studies the physical and compositional properties of the so-called minor bodies of the Solar System, that includes asteroids, icy objects, and comets. Of special interest are the trans-neptunian objects (TNOs), including those considered the most distant objects detected so far (Extreme-TNOs or ETNOs); the comets and the comet-asteroid
Julia de
León Cruz