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Some asteroids eject dust, unexpectedly producing transient, comet-like comae and tails. First ascribed to the sublimation of near-surface water ice, mass losing asteroids (also called "main-belt comets") can in fact be driven by a…
Ordinary chondrites (OCs) are by far the most abundant meteorites (80% of all falls). Their origin has long been the matter of a heated debate. About thirty years ago (e.g., Pellas 1988), it was proposed that OCs should originate from…
Asteroids are leftover pieces from the era of planet formation that help us understand conditions in the early Solar System. Unlike larger planetary bodies that were subject to global thermal modification during and subsequent to their…
The $\delta$-Cancrid meteoroid stream forms four active meteor showers which are observable on the Earth annually during January-February and August-September. The stream's definite parent comet has not been established. We performed a…
Knowledge of water in the solar system is important for understanding of a wide range of evolutionary processes and the thermal history of the solar system. To explore the existence of water in the solar system, it is indispensable to…
The near-Earth asteroid population suggests the existence of an inner Main Belt source of asteroids that belongs to the spectroscopic X-complex and has moderate albedos. The identification of such a source has been lacking so far. We argue…
Observations of comets and asteroids show that the Solar Nebula that spawned our planetary system was rich in water and organic molecules. Bombardment brought these organics to the young Earth's surface, seeding its early chemistry. Unlike…
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…
We investigated the hydrogen isotopic compositions and water contents of pyroxenes in two recent ordinary chondrite falls, namely, Chelyabinsk (2013 fall) and Benenitra (2018 fall), and compared them to three ordinary chondrite Antarctic…
Small bodies in the solar system are conventionally classified into asteroids and comets. However, it is recently found that a small number of objects can exhibit properties of both asteroids and comets. Some are more consistent with…
Chondrites are rocky fragments of asteroids that formed at different times and heliocentric distances in the early solar system. Most chondrite groups contain water-bearing minerals, attesting that both water-ice and dust were accreted on…
Carbonaceous chondrite meteorites are known for having high water and organic material contents, including amino acids. Here we address the origin of amino acids in the warm interiors of their parent bodies (planetesimals) within a few…
Calcium-aluminum-rich inclusions (CAIs) in carbonaceous chondritic meteorites are the oldest relics in the solar system. Notably, their radiogenic age feature a brief (100 kyr) condensation episode. In contrast, the reservoirs of the…
We present the first results of our survey of asteroid polarization-phase curves in the near-infrared J and H bands using the WIRC+Pol instrument on the Palomar 200-inch telescope. We confirm through observations of standard stars that…
Recent models of the near-Earth asteroid population show that asteroids must be super-catastrophically destroyed when they evolve to orbits with perihelion passages well inside of Mercury's orbit. The heliocentric distances at which the…
Large main-belt asteroids (diameter $D \gtrsim 120\ \mathrm{km}$) exhibit a surface composition gradient as a function of heliocentric distance, ranging from anhydrous bodies to those rich in hydrated and, possibly, ammoniated materials.…
The class of meteorites called carbonaceous chondrites are examples of material from the solar system which have been relatively unchanged from the time of their initial formation. These meteorites have been classified according to the…
Accretion processes in protoplanetary disks produce a diversity of small bodies that played a crucial role in multiple reshuffling events throughout the solar system and in both early and late accretion of planets. Application of…
Early Solar System (SS) planetesimals constitute the parent bodies of most meteorites investigated today. Nucleosynthetic isotope anomalies of bulk meteorites have revealed a dichotomy between non-carbonaceous (NC) and carbonaceous (CC)…
M-type asteroids, as defined in the Tholen taxonomy (Tholen, 1984), are medium albedo bodies supposed to have a metallic composition and to be the progenitors both of differentiated iron-nickel meteorites and enstatite chondrites. We…