IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v458y2009i7241d10.1038_nature07956.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Solar wind as the origin of rapid reddening of asteroid surfaces

Author

Listed:
  • P. Vernazza

    (European Space Agency, Keplerlaan 1, 2201 AZ Noordwijk, The Netherlands)

  • R. P. Binzel

    (Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA)

  • A. Rossi

    (Spaceflight Dynamics Section, ISTI-CNR, Via Moruzzi, 1, 56124 Pisa, Italy)

  • M. Fulchignoni

    (Laboratoire d’Etudes Spatiales et d’Instrumentation en Astrophysique, Observatoire de Paris, 5 Place Jules Janssen, Meudon, F-92195, France)

  • M. Birlan

    (IMCCE, Observatoire de Paris, 77 Av. Denfert Rochereau, 75014 Paris Cedex, France)

Abstract

How asteroids go into the red Asteroids appear much 'redder' than the meteorites derived from them. The accepted explanation for this is 'space weathering' of asteroidal surfaces, though the actual processes and timescales involved have remained controversial. New measurements of the spectral properties of two young asteroid families reveal that whatever space weathering is, it must be a very rapid process. The asteroids, of the Datura and Lucascavin clusters, have acquired most of their final red colour within a million years of their birth in a catastrophic collision. The rapid timescale favours solar wind implantation as the main mechanism of space weathering, and suggests that colour differences between asteroids are not so much a function of age, but more of their surface composition.

Suggested Citation

  • P. Vernazza & R. P. Binzel & A. Rossi & M. Fulchignoni & M. Birlan, 2009. "Solar wind as the origin of rapid reddening of asteroid surfaces," Nature, Nature, vol. 458(7241), pages 993-995, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:458:y:2009:i:7241:d:10.1038_nature07956
    DOI: 10.1038/nature07956
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature07956
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature07956?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yu Jiang & Yanshuo Ni & Hexi Baoyin & Junfeng Li & Yongjie Liu, 2022. "Asteroids and Their Mathematical Methods," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 10(16), pages 1-28, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:458:y:2009:i:7241:d:10.1038_nature07956. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.