Highlights From Hayabusa/AMICA Imaging Of (25143) Itokawa

Details Highlights From Hayabusa/AMICA Imaging Of (25143) Itokawa Highlights From Hayabusa/AMICA Imaging Of (25143) Itokawa

Sep 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006dps....38.6801t&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #38, #68.01; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 38, p.620

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Scientific paper

Between 2005 September and November, approximately 1500 images of the S-type near-Earth asteroid (25143) Itokawa were obtained by the Asteroid Multiband Imaging CAmera (AMICA) onboard the Hayabusa spacecraft. The images strongly suggest a rubble pile structure for the asteroid, with numerous boulders strewn over most of the surface, one being nearly a tenth the size of the asteroid itself, and another appearing to be embedded deeply enough in regolith to prevent it from falling over. One conspicuously dark boulder (chosen to serve as a marker for the prime meridian of the coordinate system) has an albedo about half that of the surrouding terrain, yet multicolor reflectance data show little difference in their spectral characteristics. The overall shape of the asteroid is suggestive of a contact binary involving two nearly triaxial ellipsoids, though the spectral similarity of the two components argues against an independent origin for them. The overall dimensions of the asteroid are roughly 535 by 294 by 209 m. Although craters are present, relatively few are conspicuous, and all appear to be degraded. The same sort of "ponding" seen on Eros appears to occur on Itokawa as well, though the lack of fresh craters makes seismic shaking from more recent impacts problematic as a formation mechanism; instead, seismic shaking caused by tidal effects during a very close planetary encounter are proposed as an alternative. Color and albedo variations are present at small spatial scales, with the brighter areas tending to be bluer.
Support for this work was provided by NASA via JPL contract 1208129.

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