Initial results from the New Horizons exploration of 2014 MU 69 , a small Kuiper Belt object
S. A. SternH. A. WeaverJ. R. SpencerC. B. OlkinG. R. GladstoneW. M. GrundyJ. M. MooreD. P. CruikshankH. A. ElliottW. B. McKinnonJ. W. ParkerA. J. VerbiscerL. A. YoungDavid AguilarJoshua AlbersT. AndertJohn P. AndrewsF. BagenalM. E. BanksBrian BauerJeremy BaumanKatie BechtoldC. B. BeddingfieldNeda BehroozK. BeißerSusan D. BenecchiE. BernardoniR. A. BeyerS. BhaskaranC. J. BiersonRichard P. BinzelEmma BirathM. K. BirdDylan BooneAlice BowmanV. J. BrayD. T. BrittL. E. BrownMatthew R. BuckleyM. W. BuieB. J. BurattiLaura M. BurkeStewart BushmanB. CarcichA. ChaikinCarrie L. ChavezA. F. ChengEdwin ColwellSteven J. ConardM. P. ConnerC. A. ConradJ. C. CookStanley B. CooperO. S. CustodioC. M. Dalle OreChristopher C. DeBoyPriya DharmavaramRajani D. DhingraG. DunnA. M. EarleA. F. EganJ. EisigM. R. El‐MaarryCarl EngelbrechtB. L. EnkeCarl J. ErcolE. FattigChelsea L. FerrellT. FinleyJ. FirerJoel T. FischettiW. M. FolknerM. N. FosburyGlen H. FountainJ. M. FreezeLeila GabasovaL. S. GlazeJames GreenGabrielle GriffithYanping GuoM. HahnD. W. HalsDouglas P. HamiltonSarah A. HamiltonJ. HanleyA. HarchKristen HarmonH. M. HartJ. R. HayesChristopher B. HersmanM. E. HillTracy A. HillJason D. HofgartnerMark E. HoldridgeM. HorányiA. HosadurgaA. D. HowardC. J. A. HowettS. JaskulekDonald E. JenningsJ.R. JensenMelissa R. JonesH. K. KangD. J. KatzD. E. KaufmannJ. J. KavelaarsJ. T. KeaneG. P. KeleherM. J. KinczykM. C. KochteP. KollmannS. M. KrimigisGerhard KruizingaDavid Y. KusnierkiewiczM. S. LahrTod R. LauerGeorge LawrenceJ. E. LeeErik J. Lessac‐ChenenI. R. LinscottC. M. LisseAllen LunsfordDeclan MagesV. A. MallderN. MartinB. MayD. J. McComasR. L. McNuttDoug MehokeThomas MehokeDerek NelsonHien D. NguyenJorge I. NúñezA. OcampoW. M. OwenG. K. OxtonA. H. ParkerM. PätzoldJohn PelgriftF. PelletierJon P. PineauM. PiquetteSimon B. PorterS. ProtopapaÉ. QuiricoJ. RedfernAlysen RegiecH. J. ReitsemaDennis C. ReuterD. C. RichardsonJoseph E. RiedelM. A. RitterbushS. J. RobbinsD. J. RodgersGabe RogersD. RosePaul E. RosendallKirby RunyonM. G. RyschkewitschMagda SainaMichael J. SalinasP. SchenkJ. ScherrerWayne SchleiB. SchmittDaniel SchultzD. C. SchurrF. ScipioniRebecca SepanRichard SheltonM. R. ShowalterM. SimonK. N. SingerE. W. StahlheberDale StanbridgeJ. A. StansberryA. J. StefflD. F. StrobelM. M. StothoffT. StrykJeffrey StuartM. E. SummersMark B. TapleyAnthony H. TaylorH. W. TaylorR. M. TedfordH. B. ThroopL. S. TurnerO. M. UmurhanJ. Van EckD. VelezM. H. VersteegMichael A. VincentR. WebbertS. WeidnerGerald WeigleJohan WendelO. L. WhiteKarl WhittenburgB. G. WilliamsKenneth E. WilliamsStephen WilliamsHelene WintersA. M. ZangariT. H. Zurbuchen
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The Kuiper Belt is a distant region of the Solar System. On 1 January 2019, the New Horizons spacecraft flew close to (486958) 2014 MU69, a Cold Classical Kuiper Belt Object, a class of objects that have never been heated by the Sun and are therefore well preserved since their formation. Here we describe initial results from these encounter observations. MU69 is a bi-lobed contact binary with a flattened shape, discrete geological units, and noticeable albedo heterogeneity. However, there is little surface color and compositional heterogeneity. No evidence for satellites, ring or dust structures, gas coma, or solar wind interactions was detected. By origin MU69 appears consistent with pebble cloud collapse followed by a low velocity merger of its two lobes.Keywords:
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Understanding asteroid collisional evolution is important for characterizing the physical state of asteroids today and for learning about the processes that acted in this region of the solar system early in its history. The collisional outcome algorithm in the numerical simulation of asteroid evolution was revised to reflect pressure-strengthening. Asteroid collisions are now treated as a distribution of oblique impacts rather than as only head-on collisions. The initial and evolved size distribution of a plausible asteroid population is compared with the observed size distribution. Asteroid accretion times and reconstruction of the primordial solar nebula suggest that there was significantly more mass in this part of the solar system when the asteroids were accreting.
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▪ Abstract The region of the solar system immediately beyond Neptune's orbit is densely populated with small bodies. This region, known as the Kuiper Belt, consists of objects that may predate Neptune, the orbits of which provide a fossil record of processes operative in the young solar system. The Kuiper Belt contains some of the Solar System's most primitive, least thermally processed matter. It is probably the source of the short-period comets and Centaurs, and may also supply collisionally generated interplanetary dust. I discuss the properties of the Kuiper Belt and provide an overview of the outstanding scientific issues.
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Understanding asteroid collisional evolution is important for characterizing the physical state of asteroids today and for learning about the processes that acted in this region of the solar system early in its history. The collisional outcome algorithm in the numerical simulation of asteroid evolution was revised to reflect pressure-strengthening. Asteroid collisions are now treated as a distribution of oblique impacts rather than as only head-on collisions. The initial and evolved size distribution of a plausible asteroid population is compared with the observed size distribution. Asteroid accretion times and reconstruction of the primordial solar nebula suggest that there was significantly more mass in this part of the solar system when the asteroids were accreting.
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Abstract Arguments have been made that the surfaces of the C-, G-, B-, and F-class asteroids have been thermally metamorphosed at temperatures ranging from 600 to 1000°C (Hiroi, T., C. M. Pieters, M. E. Zolensky, and M. E. Lipschutz 1993.Science261, 1016–1018). These arguments are based on similarities between the strength of a UV/blue absorption feature and the general spectral shape from 1.0 to 2.5 μm in spectra of these asteroids and spectra of three CI/CM carbonaceous chondrites showing compositional signs of thermal metamorphism. Many of these asteroids exhibit a spectral feature centered at 0.7 μm associated with the presence of iron-bearing phyllosilicates, products of an aqueous alteration process. This feature vanishes in the spectra of CM2 carbonaceous chondrite samples heated to temperatures ≥400°C, contradicting the conclusion that the surface material of these asteroids was last heated to higher temperatures. The presence and distribution of this spectral feature among the low-albedo asteroids places some constraints on the thermal environment in the early Solar System. A weak correlation of the presence of this feature with asteroid diameter suggests that the asteroid heating that occurred shortly after their formation was due to a mechanism having a dependency on both heliocentric distance and size.
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A comprehensive model for the changes in asteroid spin rates due to large collisions was developed by combining the theoretical results of Cellino et al. (1990) with previously published work on spin rate changes for cratering impacts (Harris, 1979; Dobrovolskis and Burns, 1984). The spin change algorithm, when incorporated into an existing simulation of collisional effects on asteroid sizes, produced an integrated model for studying the simultaneous evolution of asteroid sizes and spin rates over the solar system history. As a result of an analysis of 32 collisional scenarios with regard to the change in the spin rate as a function of asteroid size, it is concluded that the spin rates of all asteroids, except possibly the largest ones, have been significantly altered by collisions over the solar system history and that, in general, shattering impacts are much more important than cratering events in changing the spin of asteroids.
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Asteroids appear in light of telescopic and meteority studies to be the most accessible repositories of early solar system history available. In the cooler regions of the outer asteroid belt, apparently unaffected by severe heating, the C, P, and D populations appear to harbor significant inventories of volatiles; the larger primordial belt population may have had an even greater percentage of volatile-rich, low-albedo asteroids, constituting a potent asteroid for veneering early terrestrial planet atmospheres. The volatile-rich asteroids contain carbon, structurally bound and adsorbed water, as well as remnants of interstellar material predating the solar system.
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Telescopic data on asteroids, comets, planets, and planetary satellites are acquired and analyzed in the study of volatile ices and gases that occur on their surfaces and in their atmospheres. Infrared spectral studies of certain classes of asteroids for an analysis of their mineralogical and organic constituents are included.
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Abstract In this work we aim to investigate the presence of absorption bands around 3.4 μm in the infrared spectra of primitive asteroids. We collected the published reflectance spectra of low-albedo asteroids from the literature and analyzed the 2.4-3.8 μm region using the same techniques. From the initial dataset of 92 asteroids, we restricted our analysis to 42 spectra of low-albedo asteroids with a good signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio and we found the absorption feature around 3.4 μm in the spectra of 16 objects. For objects that are classified by the 3 μm band into the ’rounded’, Ceres-like, and Europa-like groups, the depth of the 3.4 μm feature is strongly correlated with that of the 3 μm band. The majority of objects in our dataset not showing the 3.4 μm absorption band have lower S/N spectra and belong to Ch or Chg classes, while asteroids with a detected 3.4 μm bands mostly belong to C, B, and also P types. Additionally, asteroids with a detected 3.4 μm band tend to have a lower albedo, redder J-K colors, and more neutral U-V colors. We observe that the analyzed objects larger than ∼300 km in diameter show features due to carbon-bearing materials, which could be explained by their higher S/N ratio in our dataset. Finally, we found that the distributions of asteroids showing the 3.4 μm feature appear to be shifted towards larger distances from the Sun compared to those not showing this band.
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