Related papers: Asteroids fail to retain cometary impact signature…
Through its connection with HED meteorites, Vesta is known as one of the first bodies to have accreted and differentiated in the Solar Nebula, predating the formation of Jupiter and surviving the violent evolution of the early Solar System.…
V-type asteroids in the inner Main Belt (a < 2.5 AU) and the HED meteorites are thought to be genetically related to one another as collisional fragments from the surface of the large basaltic asteroid 4 Vesta. We investigate this…
The majority of basaltic asteroids are found in the inner main belt, although a few have also been observed in the outer main belt and near-Earth space. These asteroids -referred to as V-types- have surface compositions that resemble that…
The majority of basaltic objects in the main belt are dynamically connected to Vesta, the largest differentiated asteroid known. Others, due to their current orbital parameters, cannot be easily dynamically linked to Vesta. This is…
We study the impactor flux and cratering on Ceres and Vesta caused by the collisional and dynamical evolution of the asteroid Main Belt. We develop a statistical code based on a well-tested model for the simultaneous evolution of the Main…
In recent years several small basaltic V-type asteroids have been identified all around the main belt. Most of them are members of the Vesta dynamical family, but an increasingly large number appear to have no link with it. The question…
Vesta, the second largest Main Belt asteroid, will be the first to be explored in 2011 by NASA's Dawn mission. It is a dry, likely differentiated body with spectrum suggesting that is has been resurfaced by basaltic lava flows, not too…
Vesta is the only currently identified asteroid for which we possess samples, which revealed us that the asteroid is differentiated and possesses a relatively thin basaltic crust that survived to the evolution of the asteroid belt and the…
We numerically estimate the semi-major axis chaotic diffusion of the Vesta family asteroids induced by close encounters with 11 massive main belt asteroids : (1) Ceres, (2) Pallas, (3) Juno, (4) Vesta, (7) Iris, (10) Hygiea, (15) Eunomia,…
The asteroid belt was dynamically shaped during and after planet formation. Despite representing a broad ring of stable orbits, the belt contains less than one one-thousandth of an Earth mass. The asteroid orbits are dynamically excited…
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,…
Mesosiderites are a type of stony-iron meteorites composed of a mixture of silicates and Fe-Ni metals. The mesosiderite silicates and metals are considered to have originated from the crust and metal core, respectively, of a differentiated…
The surface composition of Vesta, the most massive intact basaltic object in the asteroid belt, is interesting because it provides us with an insight into magmatic differentiation of planetesimals that eventually coalesced to form the…
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…
Giant planet migration appears widespread among planetary systems in our Galaxy. However, the timescales of this process, which reflect the underlying dynamical mechanisms, are not well constrained, even within the solar system. Since…
Recent models of solar system formation suggest that a dynamical instability among the giant planets happened within the first 100 Myr after disk dispersal, perhaps before the Moon-forming impact. As a direct consequence, a bombardment of…
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…
The asteroid (4) Vesta, parent body of the Howardite-Eucrite-Diogenite meteorites, is one of the first bodies that formed, mostly from volatile-depleted material, in the Solar System. The Dawn mission recently provided evidence that…
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…
The NASA Dawn mission has extensively examined the surface of asteroid Vesta, the second most massive body in the main belt. The high quality of the gathered data provides us with an unique opportunity to determine the surface and internal…