Related papers: The compositional diversity of non-Vesta basaltic …
The asteroid (16) Psyche is of scientific interest because it contains ~ 1% of the total mass of the asteroid belt and is thought to be the remnant metallic core of a protoplanet. Radar observations have indicated the significant presence…
Asteroid spectroscopy reflects surface mineralogy. There are few thousand asteroids whose surfaces have been observed spectrally. Determining the surface properties of those objects is important for many practical and scientific…
Context. The study of planet-crossing asteroids is of both practical and fundamental importance. As they are closer than asteroids in the Main Belt, we have access to a smaller size range, and this population frequently impacts planetary…
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…
We have performed detailed dynamical modeling of the structure of a faint dust band observed in coadded IRAS data at an ecliptic latitude of 17$^{\circ}$ that convincingly demonstrates that it is the result of a relatively recent…
We present reflected light spectral observations from 0.4 to 2.5 micron of 24 asteroids chosen from the population of asteroids initially classified as Tholen X-type objects (Tholen, 1984). The X complex in the Tholen taxonomy comprises the…
Aims. We developed a six-part collisional evolution model of the main asteroid belt (MB) and used it to study the contribution of the different regions of the MB to the near-earth asteroids (NEAs). Methods. We built a statistical code…
The distribution of asteroids across the Main Belt has been studied for decades to understand the compositional distribution and what that tells us about the formation and evolution of our solar system. All-sky surveys now provide orders of…
A considerable amount of information regarding the processes that occurred during the accretion of the early planetesimals is still present among the small bodies of our solar system. A review of our current knowledge of the density of…
Six asteroids including two NEAs, one of which is PHA, accessible for observation in September 2012 were investigated using a low-resolution spectrophotometry in the range 0.35-0.90 um with the aim to study features of their reflectance…
Here we report a comparison between reflectance spectroscopy of meteorites under asteroidal environment (high vacuum and temperature) and Main Belt and Near Earth Asteroids spectra. Focusing on the OH absorption feature around 3{\mu}m, we…
In this work, we investigate the size, thermal inertia, surface roughness and geometric albedo of 10 Vesta family asteroids by using the Advanced Thermophysical Model (ATPM), based on the thermal infrared data acquired by mainly NASA's…
The study of small ($<$300 m) near-Earth objects (NEOs) is important because they are more closely related than larger objects to the precursors of meteorites that fall on Earth. Collisions of these bodies with Earth are also more frequent.…
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…
The main asteroid belt (MAB) is known to be primarily composed of objects from two distinct taxonomic classes, generically defined here as S- and C-complex. The former probably originated from the inner solar system (interior to Jupiter's…
Recent dynamical studies have identified pairs of asteroids that reside in nearly identical heliocentric orbits. Possible formation scenarios for these systems include dissociation of binary asteroids, collisional disruption of a single…
Differentiated asteroids are rare in the main asteroid belt despite evidence for ~100 distinct differentiated bodies in the meteorite record. We have sought to understand why so few main-belt asteroids differentiated and where those…
Photometric lightcurves were also obtained for 14 of them during the Spitzer observations to provide the context of the observations and reliable estimates of their absolute magnitudes. The extracted mid-IR spectra were analyzed using a…
To evaluate the feasibility of measuring differences in bulk composition among carbonaceous meteorite parent bodies from an asteroid or comet orbiter, we present the results of a performance simulation of an orbital gamma-ray spectroscopy…
This thesis presents insights into the surface compositional heterogeneity and geology of asteroid Vesta. Lithologic mapping using Framing Camera onboard the NASA Dawn spacecraft revealed that the majority of the surface is howarditic in…