Bibcode
Clark, Beth Ellen; Ziffer, Julie; Nesvorny, David; Campins, Humberto; Rivkin, Andrew S.; Hiroi, Takahiro; Barucci, Maria Antonietta; Fulchignoni, Marcello; Binzel, Richard P.; Fornasier, Sonia; DeMeo, Francesca; Ockert-Bell, Maureen E.; Licandro, J.; Mothé-Diniz, Thais
Bibliographical reference
Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 115, Issue E6, CiteID E06005
Advertised on:
6
2010
Citations
0
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0
Description
B-type asteroids have a negative slope from ˜0.5 to ˜1.1
μm and beyond. What causes this? Visible to near-infrared reflectance
spectra (0.4-2.5 μm) are assembled for 22 B-type asteroids. The
spectra fall naturally into three groups: (1) those with negative (blue)
spectral shapes like 2 Pallas (7 objects), (2) those with concave curve
shapes like 24 Themis (11 objects), and (3) everything else (4 objects).
The asteroid spectra are compared to mineral and meteorite spectra from
the Reflectance Experiment Laboratory library of 15,000 samples, in a
least squares search for particulate analogs, constrained by spectral
brightness. The Pallas group objects show a trend of analogs from the
CV, CO, and CK meteorite groups. Only three of the seven Pallas-like
objects are determined to be dynamically related (2, 1508, and 6411).
The Themis group objects show a trend of analogs from the CI, CM, CR,
CI-Unusual, and CM-Unusual meteorites (as expected from the work of
Hiroi et al. (1996)). Seven of the 11 Themis-like objects are
dynamically related (24, 62, 222, 316, 379, 383, and 431). Allowing for
reasonable uncertainties in the spectral matches, we find no need to
invoke mineralogies that do not exist in the meteorite collection to
explain B-type spectra or their negative slopes. Our Themis group
results are as expected and are consistent with previous work, but our
Pallas group results are new and, in some cases, in conflict with
previous work.
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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
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