Bibcode
de Leon, J.; Pinilla-Alonso, N.
Bibliographical reference
American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #47, #106.09
Advertised on:
11
2015
Citations
0
Refereed citations
0
Description
NASA OSIRIS-REx and JAXA Hayabusa 2 sample-return missions have targeted
two near-Earth asteroids: (101955) Bennu and (162173) 1999 JU3,
respectively. These are primitive asteroids that are believed to
originate in the inner belt, where five distinct sources have been
identified: four primitive collisional families (Polana, Erigone,
Sulamitis, and Clarissa), and a population of low-albedo and
low-inclination background asteroids. Identifying and characterizing the
populations from which these two NEAs might originate will enchance the
science return of the two missions.With this main objective in mind, we
initiated in 2010 a spectroscopic survey in the visible and the
near-infrared to characterize the primitive collisional families in the
inner belt and the low-albedo background population. This is the
PRIMitive Asteroids Spectroscopic Survey – PRIMASS. So far we have
obtained more than 200 spectra using telescopes located at different
observatories. PRIMASS uses a variety of ground based facilities. Most
of the spectra have been obtained using the 10.4m Gran Telescopio
Canarias (GTC), and the 3.6m Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG), both
located at the El Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (La Palma, Spain),
and the 3.0m NASA Infrared Telescope Facility on Mauna Kea (Hawai,
USA).We present the first results from our on-going survey (de Leon et
al. 2015; Pinilla-Alonso et al. 2015; Morate et al. 2015), focused on
the Polana and the Erigone primitive families, with visible and
near-infrared spectra of more than 200 objects, most of them with no
previous spectroscopic data. Our survey is already the largest database
of primitive asteroids spectra, and we keep obtaining data on the
Sulamitis and the Clarissa families, as well as on the background
low-albedo population.