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
75
Refereed citations
70
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
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