Bibcode
Lazzaro, D.; Duffard, R.; Licandro, J.; De Sanctis, M. C.; Capria, M. T.
Referencia bibliográfica
American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #35, #34.13; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 35, p.978
Advertised on:
5
2003
Número de citas
0
Número de citas referidas
0
Descripción
(4) Vesta is the unique large asteroid with a basaltic surface present
in the Asteroid Belt. In recent years, several smaller asteroids having
similar composition have been discovered in the neighbourhood of Vesta
and even far away from it. It has been suggested that all these small
asteroids came from Vesta even if dynamical studies do not fully
corroborate this scenario. A better insight on this problem can be
obtained through a precise mineralogical characterization of some of
these bodies.
In the present work we obtained low resolution VNIR spectra of V-type
asteroids in the neighbourhood of Vesta. The observations were obtained
on April 22 and 23, 2003, with the 3.6m Telescopio Nazionale Galileo
(TNG) using NICS and the Amici disperser. This instrumentation yields a
complete 0.9 - 2.5mm spectrum. Visible spectra, in the range of 0.4 -
1.0mm, were also obtained, on April 24, for some of the asteroids using
DOLORES Low Resolution Spectrograph. All the data has been reduced
following standard procedures with the IRAF package.
Near-infrared and visible spectra were obtained for 18 and 8 asteroids,
respectively. Among the observed asteroids 12 are members of the Vesta's
dynamical family while the remaining are V-type asteroids in the
neighbourhood, but not members of the family. The precise mineralogical
composition of the observed asteroids was determined using the technique
described in Gaffey et al.[Icarus 196, 573, 1993]. The compositional
analysis of several V-type asteroids in the neighbourhood of Vesta
corroborates previous works about the existence of different kinds of
basalts. On the other side, there seem to be no clear correlation
between the mineralogy and the objects being, or not, members of the
dynamical family of Vesta.
"Based on observations made with the Italian Telescopio Nazionale
Galileo (TNG) operated on the island of La Palma by the Centro Galileo
Galilei of the INAF (Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica) at the Spanish
Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofisica
de Canarias."