Related papers: The Cratering History of Asteroid (21) Lutetia
We have used the Keck I telescope to image at 11.7 microns and 17.9 microns the dust emission around zeta Lep, a main sequence A-type star at 21.5 pc from the Sun with an infrared excess. The excess is at most marginally resolved at 17.9…
The asteroid belt is an open window on the history of the Solar System, as it preserves records of both its formation process and its secular evolution. The progenitors of the present-day asteroids formed in the Solar Nebula almost…
The Rafita asteroid family is an S-type group located in the middle main belt, on the right side of the 3J:-1A mean-motion resonance. The proximity of this resonance to the family left side in semi-major axis caused many former family…
The surface of airless bodies like asteroids in the Solar System are known to be affected by space weathering. Experiments simulating space weathering are essential for studying the effects of this process on meteorite samples, but the…
N-body numerical simulations code for the orbital motion of asteroids/planetesimals within the asteroid belt under the gravitational influence of the sun and the accreting planets has been developed. The aim is to make qualitative, and to…
In this work we report the discovery of a young cluster of asteroids that originated by the breakup of an asteroid member of the (221)Eos family. By applying the Hierarchical clustering method to the catalog of proper elements we have…
The asteroid belt is the leftover of the original planetesimal population in the inner solar system. However, currently the asteroids have orbits with all possible values of eccentricities and inclinations compatible with long-term…
This study examines the rotational characteristics of asteroids through statistical modeling of the diameter-period relationship. A statistical evaluation of the diameter-period relationship was conducted using a dataset of 34,326…
Low-albedo, hydrated objects dominate the list of the largest asteroids. These objects have varied spectral shapes in the 3-$\mu$m region, where diagnostic absorptions due to volatile species are found. Dawn's visit to Ceres has extended…
We have evaluated the rate at which the asteroid belt is losing material, and how it splits between macroscopic bodies and meteoritic dust. The mass loss process is due to the injection of asteroid fragments into unstable dynamical regions,…
We report a new active asteroid in the main belt of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter. Object (62412) 2000 SY178 exhibited a tail in images collected during our survey for objects beyond the Kuiper Belt using the Dark Energy Camera (DECam)…
V-type asteroids are a taxonomic class whose surface is associated to a basaltic composition. The only known source of V-type asteroids in the Main Asteroid Belt is (4) Vesta, that is located in the inner part of the belt. However, many…
A class of asteroids, called large super-fast rotators (large SFRs), have rotation periods shorter than 2 hours and diameters larger than ~ 0.3 km. They pose challenges to the usual interior rubble-pile structure unless a relatively high…
We observed near-Earth asteroid (162421) 2000 ET70 using the Arecibo and Goldstone radar systems over a period of 12 days during its close approach to the Earth in February 2012. We obtained continuous wave spectra and range-Doppler images…
Pluto's surface displays a wide variety of geologic units from smooth plains to extremely rugged mountainous expanses. These terrains range in age from young, actively resurfaced regions (no observable craters even in the highest-resolution…
In the frame of the international campaign to observe potential target asteroids for the Rosetta mission, remote observations have been carried out between Observatoire de Paris, in Meudon-France, and the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility on…
The moniker rubble pile is typically applied to all solar system bodies with Diameter between 200m and 10km - where in this size range there is an abundance of evidence that nearly every object is bound primarily by self-gravity with…
We present HST Faint Object Camera observations of the asteroid 1 Ceres at near-, mid-, and far-UV wavelengths (lambda = 3636, 2795, and 1621 A, respectively) obtained on 1995 June 25. The disk of Ceres is well-resolved for the first time,…
We have obtained extensive photometric observations of the polluted white dwarf WD 1145+017 which has been reported to be transited by at least one, and perhaps several, large asteroids (or, planetesimals) with dust emission. We have…
Context. The high-angular-resolution capability of the new-generation ground-based adaptive-optics camera SPHERE at ESO VLT allows us to assess, for the very first time, the cratering record of medium-sized (D~100-200 km) asteroids from the…