Mineralogical Characterization Of 150 S-type Asteroids And Comparison With OC Meteorites

Mathematics – Logic

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Scientific paper

An important goal of asteroid science is to link meteorites and their immediate precursors back to their parent bodies. To accomplish this task, we need to combine data from several different disciplines: dynamical modeling, spectroscopic observations, petrology, and mineralogy. In this regard, a major question that spectroscopy can help to answer is `How well do meteorites sample the asteroid belt?'
Over the last four years, more than 300 asteroids have been observed in the 0.4-2.5 micron range (Demeo et al. 2007; this meeting). Among them, 150 objects belong to the S complex. We compared the mineralogical composition of all these S-type asteroids with the composition of OC meteorites in order to bring an answer to our question.
First, we applied the Shkuratov et al. (1999) model to an OC sample from RELAB (19 H chondrites, 27 L chondrites and 11 LL chondrites). This allowed us to constrain the relative abundance of olivine and orthopyroxene for these meteorites as well as the chemistry of these minerals (Mg number). Second, we applied the same model with the same optical constants to our asteroid sample. We also used the Brunetto et al. (2006) in order to model the spectral reddening (if present) due to space weathering processes.
We find that a major fraction (>70%) of the S-type asteroids has a composition (in terms of olivine and orthopyroxene percentage) that is clearly compatible with OC meteorites. Since our S-type sample includes both near-Earth and main-belt asteroids, it suggests that ordinary chondrites have a broad source region (as opposed to being derived from a few specially placed parent bodies). Yet we have an unsolved conundrum: the majority of our asteroid model fits suggest an LL-chondrite meteorite analog, even though this group comprises only 10% of all ordinary chondrite falls. Possible solutions will be presented.

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