Primitive Materials on Asteroids

Details Primitive Materials on Asteroids Primitive Materials on Asteroids

Sep 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008dps....40.6005s&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #40, #60.05; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 40, p.508

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The linkage between asteroids and meteorites is critical if we are to fully understand both. We are searching for evidence of likely primitive materials among asteroid spectra, looking for unequilibrated ordinary chondrite (UOC) material on S asteroids and material similar to terrestrial phyllosilicates on C asteroids. We do not rely on the rare C chondrites as a point of comparison with C asteroids because of selection effects in their passage to Earth.
Few if any of the UOC plot in the ordinary chondrite field of the Gaffey plot, but all have absorption bands at 2 μm normally associated with calcic clinopyroxene. In the UOC this band is almost certainly due to Ca-free monoclinic pyroxene, a major phase in these meteorites. The question thus arises whether any of the asteroids for which calcic pyroxene has been reported are actually the source objects for UOC. The presence of asteroids with UOC-like surfaces would suggest that those objects are internally heated monoliths, with the equilibrated ordinary chondrites, which are more abundant in terrestrial falls, coming from the interiors. The presence of UOC material irregularly dispersed on the surface would suggest that the asteroids are rubble piles, but spacecraft observations would be required to see this.
The slope of the continuum of phyllosilicate IR spectra depends on composition and structure, and does not overlap with similar data for the C asteroids unless the phyllosilicates are heated in the laboratory to temperatures in excess of 900oC. This suggests that the surfaces of C asteroids are covered with phyllosilicates that were dehydrated during regolith working, as others have reported. We are optimistic that further analysis will make it possible to constrain the nature of the phyllosilicates and the degree of heating.

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