Related papers: First disk-resolved spectroscopy of (4) Vesta

Investigations of the main asteroid belt and efforts to constrain that population's physical characteristics involve the daunting task of studying hundreds of thousands of small bodies. Taxonomic systems are routinely employed to study the…

We present near-infrared (0.78-2.45 {\mu}m) reflectance spectra for nine middle and outer main belt (a > 2.5 AU) basaltic asteroids. Three of these objects are spectrally distinct from all classifications in the Bus-DeMeo system and could…

We observed asteroid (596) Scheila and its ejecta cloud using the Swift UV-optical telescope. We obtained photometry of the nucleus and the ejecta, and for the first time measured the asteroid's reflection spectrum between 290 - 500 nm. Our…

Context. Sunlight scattered from the surface of an airless body is generally partially polarized, and the corresponding polarization state includes information about the scattering surface, such as albedo, surface grain sizes, composition,…

Most Howardite-Eucrite-Diogenite (HED) meteorites (analogs to V-type asteroids) are thought to originate from asteroid (4) Vesta. However, some HEDs show distinct oxygen isotope ratios and therefore are thought to originate from other…

Context. The dwarf planet Ceres and the asteroid Vesta have been studied by the Dawn space mission. They are the two heaviest bodies of the main asteroid belt and have different characteristics. Notably, Vesta appears to be dry and inactive…

Context: The dwarf planet (1) Ceres - next target of the NASA Dawn mission - is the largest body in the asteroid main belt; although several observations of this body have been performed so far, the presence of surface water ice is still…

We have combined the NEOWISE and Sloan Digital Sky Survey data to study the albedos of 24,353 asteroids with candidate taxonomic classifications derived using Sloan photometry. We find a wide range of moderate to high albedos for candidate…

Basaltic V-type asteroids are leftovers from the formation and evolution of differentiated planetesimals. They are thought to originate from mantles and crusts of multiple different parent bodies. Identifying the links between individual…

NASA's Dawn mission observed a great variety of colored terrains on asteroid (4) Vesta during its survey with the Framing Camera (FC). Here we present a detailed study of the orange material on Vesta, which was first observed in color ratio…

Vesta has a complex cratering history, with ancient terrains as well as recent large impacts that have led to regional resurfacing. Crater counts can help constrain the relative ages of different units on Vesta's surface, but converting…

The survival of asteroid Vesta during the violent early history of the Solar System is a pivotal constraint on theories of planetary formation. Particularly important from this perspective is the amount of olivine excavated from the vestan…

The Dawn spacecraft observed the presence of dark material, which in turn proved to be associated with OH and H-rich material, on the surface of Vesta. The source of this dark material has been identified with the low albedo asteroids, but…

Collision and disruption processes of proto-planetary bodies in the early solar system are key to understanding the genesis of diverse types of main-belt asteroids. Mesosiderites are stony-iron meteorites that formed by mixing of…

Non-resolved thermal infrared observations enable studies of thermal and physical properties of asteroid surfaces provided the shape and rotational properties of the target are well determined via thermo-physical models. We used…

The OSIRIS camera onboard Rosetta successfully acquired images of asteroid 2867 Steins through a variety of color filters during the flyby on 5 September 2008. The best images of this 5 km diameter asteroid have a resolution of 78 meters…

The last three decades the asteroid (1) Ceres is an object of the intensive ground-and space-based observations. A new unusual contributing to these studies represents the recent detection of localized sources of water vapour releasing from…

Aims. We aim to increase the contrast limits to detect new satellites orbiting known asteroids. We use cutting-edge data reduction techniques and data processing algorithms that are essential to best analyse the raw data provided by the…

We report visible to near-infrared spectroscopy and spectrophotometry of asteroid (21238) 1995 WV7 that reveal the presence of deep absorption bands indicating a V taxonomic type with an apparently basaltic surface composition. Since this…

We study the surface of Ceres at visible wavelengths, as observed by the Visible and InfraRed mapping spectrometer (VIR) onboard the Dawn spacecraft, and analyze the variations of various spectral parameters across the whole surface. We…