Bibcode
Campins, Humberto; Emery, Joshua; Fernandez, Yanga; Licandro, Javier; Lisse, Carey
Bibliographical reference
Spitzer Proposal ID #30241
Advertised on:
5
2006
Citations
0
Refereed citations
0
Description
Object 944 Hidalgo is one of the asteroids most likely to be an extinct
or dormant comet. Hidalgo's Tisserand invariant (T=2.07) suggests very
strongly that this object originated either in the Kuiper belt or in the
Oort cloud (Weissman et al. 2002). Our latest ground based results show
significant rotational variability in the near-infrared spectrum of
Hidalgo, but the ground based spectra are not sufficient to identify the
nature of these surface variations. Spitzer observations of Hidalgo
would be diagnostic of the surface mineralogy, as has been demonstrated
for a number of asteroids (e.g., Emery et al. 2006). We propose to
obtain 7.3 to 38 micron IRS spectra of 944 Hidalgo at 8 different
rotational phases to characterize its surface composition and other
properties such as thermal inertia.