Bibcode
Morate, D.; de León, Julia; De Prá, Mário; Licandro, Javier; Cabrera-Lavers, Antonio; Campins, Humberto; Pinilla-Alonso, Noemí; Alí-Lagoa, Víctor
Bibliographical reference
Astronomy and Astrophysics, Volume 586, id.A129, 18 pp.
Advertised on:
2
2016
Journal
Citations
31
Refereed citations
30
Description
Two primitive near-Earth asteroids, (101955) Bennu and (162173) Ryugu,
will be visited by a spacecraft with the aim of returning samples back
to Earth. Since these objects are believed to originate in the inner
main belt primitive collisional families (Erigone, Polana, Clarissa, and
Sulamitis) or in the background of asteroids outside these families, the
characterization of these primitive populations will enhance the
scientific return of the missions. The main goal of this work is to shed
light on the composition of the Erigone collisional family by means of
visible spectroscopy. Asteroid (163) Erigone has been classified as a
primitive object, and we expect the members of this family to be
consistent with the spectral type of the parent body. We have obtained
visible spectra (0.5-0.9 μm) for 101 members of the Erigone family,
using the OSIRIS instrument at the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias. We
found that 87% of the objects have typically primitive visible spectra
consistent with that of (163) Erigone. In addition, we found that a
significant fraction of these objects (~50%) present evidence of aqueous
alteration.