Discovery of a Basaltic Asteroid in the Outer Main Belt
Top Cited Papers
- 16 June 2000
- journal article
- other
- Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Science
- Vol. 288 (5473) , 2033-2035
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.288.5473.2033
Abstract
Visible and near-infrared spectroscopic observations of the asteroid 1459 Magnya indicate that it has a basaltic surface. Magnya is at 3.15 astronomical units (AU) from the sun and has no known dynamical link to any family, to any nearby large asteroid, or to asteroid 4 Vesta at 2.36 AU, which is the only other known large basaltic asteroid. We show that the region of the belt around Magnya is densely filled by mean-motion resonances, generating slow orbital diffusion processes and providing a potential mechanism for removing other basaltic fragments that may have been created on the same parent body as Magnya. Magnya may represent a rare surviving fragment from a larger, differentiated planetesimal that was disrupted long ago.Keywords
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