Bibcode
Landsman, Z. A.; Licandro, J.
Referencia bibliográfica
American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #47, #106.10
Fecha de publicación:
11
2015
Número de citas
0
Número de citas referidas
0
Descripción
Compositional studies of primitive asteroid families provide constraints
on the physical and chemical environment of the solar nebula and the
evolution of the asteroid belt. Spectroscopic studies in the visible and
near-infrared have shown spectral diversity between primitive families.
Our goal is to better constrain the composition of two primitive
families with very different ages: Themis (~2.5 Gyr) and Veritas (~8
Myr). We analyzed 5 – 14 μm Spitzer Space Telescope spectra of
a total of 18 asteroids, nine from each family. We report the presence
of a broad 10-μm emission feature, attributed to a layer of
fine-grained silicates, in the spectra of all nine Themis asteroids and
six of nine Veritas asteroids in our sample. Spectral contrast in
statistically significant detections of the 10-μm feature ranges from
1% ± 0.1% to 8.5% ± 0.9%. Comparison with the spectra of
primitive meteorites (McAdam et al. 2015, Icarus, 245, 320) suggests
asteroids in both families are similar to meteorites with lower
abundances of phyllosilicates. We used the Near-Earth Asteroid Thermal
Model to derive diameters, beaming parameters and albedos for our
sample. Asteroids in both families have beaming parameters near unity
and geometric albedos in the range 0.06 ± 0.01 to 0.14 ±
0.02. We find that contrast of the silicate emission feature is not
correlated with asteroid diameter; however, higher 10-μm contrast may
be associated with flatter spectral slopes in the near-infrared. The
spectra of both families suggest icy bodies with some amount of
fine-grained silicates, but with coarser grains or denser surface
structure than Trojan asteroids and comets.