Olivine-rich asteroids in the near-Earth space

Abstract

In the framework of a 30-night spectroscopic survey of small near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) we present new results regarding the identification of olivine-rich objects. The following NEAs were classified as A-type using visible spectra obtained with 3.6 m NTT telescope: (293726) 2007 RQ17, (444584) 2006 UK, 2012 NP, 2014 YS34, 2015 HB117, 2015 LH, 2015 TB179, 2015 TW144. We determined a relative abundance of $5.4\%$ (8 out of 147 observed targets) A-types at hundred meter size range of NEAs population. The ratio is at least five times larger compared with the previously known A-types, which represent less than $\sim 1\%$ of NEAs taxonomically classified. By taking into account that part of our targets may not be confirmed as olivine-rich asteroids by their near-infrared spectra, or they can have a nebular origin, our result provides an upper-limit estimation of mantle fragments at size ranges bellow 300m. Our findings are compared with the "battered-to-bits" scenario, claiming that at small sizes the olivine-rich objects should be more abundant when compared with basaltic and iron ones.

arXiv comment10 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication

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• Spectral properties of near-Earth objects with low-Jovian Tisserand invariant
• First Results from the rapid-response spectrophotometric characterization of Near-Earth Objects