Related papers: Probing the surface environment of large T-type as…

Although petrologic, chemical and isotopic studies of ordinary chondrites and meteorites in general have largely helped establish a chronology of the earliest events of planetesimal formation and their evolution, there are several questions…

Context. It has recently been proposed that the surface composition of icy main-belt asteroids (B-,C-,Cb-,Cg-,P-,and D-types) may be consistent with that of chondritic porous interplanetary dust particles (CPIDPs). Aims. In the light of…

Context. Ch-type asteroids are distinctive among other dark asteroids in that they exhibit deep negative polarization branches (NPBs). Nevertheless, the physical and compositional properties that cause their polarimetric distinctiveness are…

We report 491 new near-infrared spectroscopic measurements of 420 near-Earth objects (NEOs) collected on the NASA InfraRed Telescope Facility (IRTF) as part of the MIT-Hawaii NEO Spectroscopic Survey (MITHNEOS). These measurements were…

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…

Meteoroids impacting the Earth on a daily basis are fragments of asteroids and comets. By studying fireballs produced during their disintegration in the atmosphere, we can gain information about their source regions and the properties of…

We investigate spectra of airless rocky exoplanets with a theoretical framework that self-consistently treats reflection and thermal emission. We find that a silicate surface on an exoplanet is spectroscopically detectable via prominent…

From a set of adaptive optics (AO) observations collected with the W.M. Keck telescope between August and September 2009, we derived the orbital parameters of the most recently discovered satellites of the large C-type asteroid (93)…

(16) Psyche is the largest M-type asteroid in the main belt and the target of the NASA Discovery-class Psyche mission. Despite gaining considerable interest in the scientific community, Psyche's composition and formation remain…

We report the observations of solar system objects during the 2015 campaign of the High cadence Transient Survey (HiTS). We found 5740 bodies (mostly Main Belt asteroids), 1203 of which were detected in different nights and in $g'$ and…

We present evidence, via a large survey of 191 new spectra along with previously-published spectra, of a divide in the 3-$\mu$m spectral properties of the low-albedo asteroid population. One group ("Sharp-types" or ST, with band centers $<$…

We investigated the population of asteroids in comet-like orbits using available asteroid size and albedo catalogs of data taken with the Infrared Astronomical Satellite, AKARI, and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer on the basis of…

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…

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…

CONTEXT: In July 2010 the ESA spacecraft Rosetta will fly-by the main belt asteroid 21 Lutetia. Several observations of this asteroid have been so far performed, but its surface composition and nature are still a matter of debate. For long…

In this work we aim to constrain the slope of the size distribution of main-belt asteroids, at their primordial state. To do so we turn out attention to the part of the main asteroid belt between 2.82 and 2.96~AU, the so-called "pristine…

We present the results of the first-ever visible spectroscopic survey fully dedicated to the small (absolute magnitude H>20) near-Earth asteroid (NEA) population. Observations have been performed at the New Technology Telescope (NTT) of the…

Asteroid (596) Scheila was the first object for which the immediate aftermath of an inter-asteroidal collision was observed. In Dec. 2010, the 113 km-sized asteroid was impacted by a smaller asteroid of less than 100 m in diameter. The…

Thermal infrared observations are the most effective way to measure asteroid diameter and albedo for a large number of near-Earth objects. Major surveys like NEOWISE, NEOSurvey, ExploreNEOs, and NEOLegacy find a small fraction of high…

Meteor spectroscopy presents new opportunities for investigating the diversity of small Solar System bodies and capturing the real distribution of present material types. We analyze 180 higher-resolution meteor spectra from the All-sky…