Bibcode
Campins, Humberto; Fernández, Y.; Kelley, M. S.; Licandro, J.; Hargrove, K.; de León, J.; Pinilla-Alonso, N.; Morbidelli, A.
Referencia bibliográfica
American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #40, #28.19; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 40, p.439
Fecha de publicación:
9
2008
Número de citas
0
Número de citas referidas
0
Descripción
This is a progress report on a project to characterize the surface
composition (and other properties such as radius, albedo and thermal
inertia) of a sample of low perihelion Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs),
using spec-troscopy in the 0.3 to 2.5 micron region (groundbased) and in
the 7 to 14 micron region (Spitzer). NEAs with low perihelion distances
represent a unique laboratory in which to study the effects of thermal
processing on asteroid surfaces. We will study the mineral and or-ganic
composition of our targets and we will search for correlations between
their spectral characteristics and other properties such as size,
albedo, rotational and orbital properties. Understanding how asteroid
surfaces change as a result of exposure to high temperatures will help
constrain models of the compositional and thermal environment in the
region of the protoplanetary disk where asteroids formed. Part of the
motivation to study these low perihelion NEAs comes from the results of
our recent study of 3200 Phaethon [1], where we found indications that
the surface mineralogy of this low perihelion NEA may have been altered
by the perihe-lion thermal pulse. More specifically, the only two
me-teorite samples that showed approximately the same spectral shape (in
the visible and near-infrared) as Phaethon, had been heated. One is a
sample of the CI meteorite Ivuna heated in the laboratory to about 1000
K, and the other a sample of the unusual CI/CM mete-orite Yamato-86720
that seems to have been naturally heated to about 800-900 K. These
initial results sug-gests that other low perihelion NEAs may also show
the effects of thermal processing on their surfaces. PROGRESS: Spitzer
observations of our 25 targets started in 2007 and groundbased
spectroscopy started at the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG) in July
2008.
Reference:
Licandro, J. et al. (2007) Astron. & Astrophys., 461, 751.