Searching for Non-Vestoid Basaltic Asteroids

Details Searching for Non-Vestoid Basaltic Asteroids Searching for Non-Vestoid Basaltic Asteroids

Dec 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006dps....38.5923m&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #38, #59.23; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 38, p.1304

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

We present an observational campaign designed to target Main Belt asteroids that: (1) have a photometric signature similar to that of 4 Vesta and the Vestoid family, i.e. a basaltic surface indicative of past mineral differentiation, and (2) are dynamically distinct from this family so that they lie outside of the domain of orbital element phase space occupied by the V-type asteroids.
The only known non-vestoid asteroid with a basaltic surface is 1459 Magnya (Lazzaro et al. 2000). This is a paradox; collected meteorites include representatives from tens or even hundreds of past or present differentiated parent bodies in the Main Belt, a number that is at least an order of magnitude larger than the two known occurrences of Main Belt differentiation (Scott 2002).
Asteroids with potentially basaltic surfaces are chosen based on their Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) ugriz photometric magnitudes. Ten different ugriz color combinations, including two principal component colors (Nesvorny et al. 2005), are used to select asteroids that show similarity to Vestoid colors. Objects with colors that meet these criteria are then prioritized based on their dynamical dissimilarity to Vesta.
Low-resolution spectroscopy of the highest priority objects is performed using the Echellette Spectrograph and Imager (ESI) on Keck II in order to unambiguously determine whether or not our candidates have basaltic surfaces. The 0.4-1.0 micron wavelength coverage of this instrument is well suited to resolving both the 0.9 micron olivine/pyroxene absorption feature and the 0.5-0.7 micron slope that are indicative of a basaltic surface and thus that a given asteroid derives from a parent body that has experienced either partial melting or differentiation. Preliminary results from two observing runs in August and September of this year are presented here.
This research is supported in part by NSF Planetary Astronomy grant AST04-07134, P.I. R. Jedicke.

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