Introduction to Small Bodies Node:
Asteroid Introduction
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Introduction to Small Bodies Node:Asteroid Introduction |
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Asteroids are small rocky bodies which orbit the Sun. Also known as minor planets, they were formed from the leftover material of our solar system which did not get incorporated into the Sun or planets. The largest asteroid, 1 Ceres, was discovered in 1801 by the Sicilian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi. He had been studying the area between Mars and Jupiter where it was believed, at the time, an as yet undiscovered planet would be located. At first, it was thought 1 Ceres might be this planet but its size was too small for this to be the case.
There are over 10,000 asteroids that have been numbered and more are being found every month. When an asteroid is discovered it is given a temporary name consisting of six characters. The first four characters are numbers identifying the year of the discovery, the next character is a letter indicating the half-month of the year in which the discovery occurred ("I" is omitted and "Z" is unused), and the last character is a second letter indicating sequentially the asteroids discovered in that half-month ("I" is omitted). For example, the asteroid 1995 CR would be the eighteenth asteroid discovered in the first half of February of 1995. If there are more than twenty-five asteroid discoveries in a half-month then the last character will start over with "A" but with a numerical subscript added on. Should the asteroid be studied long enough for its orbit to be determined it will be given a permanent name and number. The discoverer submits a name to the International Astronomical Union: Minor Planet Center, Commission 20.
Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs) reside in the area near Earth, around 1.0 AU, and have perihelia less than or equal to 1.3 AU. Three sub-groups of NEAs have been defined. The Aten group contains the innermost asteroids, which have a semi-major axis less than 1.0 AU and a perihelion distance greater than 0.983 AU. The Apollo group asteroids have a semi-major axis greater than 1.0 AU and perihelion distance less than 1.017 AU. The Amor group asteroids have semi-major axis greater than 1.0 AU and perihelion distance between 1.017 and 1.3 AU. The Aten and Apollo asteroids cross the orbit of the Earth while the Amor asteroids do not reach Earth's orbit but do cross that of Mars.
Most Main Belt asteroids are located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter (1.8 to 4.0 AU) in a region known as the asteroid belt. Within the belt are gaps where there are few or no asteroids at all. These gaps are known as Kirkwood gaps and are the result of Jupiter's large gravitational pull on objects in these areas. Objects which might have started in the Kirkwood gaps would have had an orbital period that was a simple fraction of Jupiter's period. Such an asteroid would then have been accelerated by Jupiter's regular pull and, in time, thrown into an eccentric orbit in which it could collide with another object in the solar system.
The Trojan asteroids are two groups of asteroids located along the orbital path of Jupiter, 60 degrees ahead and behind the planet. These positions are called Lagrange points after the French theorist Joseph Louis Lagrange. Lagrange suggested that when objects in the same plane form an equilateral triangle with the Sun they can share the same orbit without catching up to or colliding with each other.
Centaurs are asteroids in the outer solar system which have orbits lying between those of Saturn and Uranus. These objects may, in fact, be more like comets or Kuiper Belt objects than asteroids. However, since the Centaurs are in orbit beyond Jupiter they do not often get a chance to get close enough to the Sun to warm up enough to show cometary activity, so they are still considered to be asteroids.
Asteroids are classified into types according to their albedo and colors or spectra, with the most common types being C, S, and M. C-type asteroids are very dark, with a low albedo of 0.03-0.06, and their spectra are flat, making their color grayish. S-type asteroids are moderately bright, having an albedo of 0.10-0.22. Their spectra have moderate to strong absorption bands and their colors are greenish to reddish. It is believed they are composed of metal-rich silicates. M-type asteroids are moderately bright, have an albedo of 0.10-0.18, with spectra which have few if any absorption bands and their colors are reddish. They are believed to be composed predominantly of metallic species, iron and nickel. There are also a dozen or so other rarer types of asteroids included in the classification scheme with their own letter designations associated with clustering of brightness and color or spectral properties.
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More Information
References
- Binzel, R.P., Gehrels, T., Matthews, M.S., Editors. Asteroids II. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1989.
- Johnson, T., McFadden, L.A., Weissman, P. Encyclopedia of the Solar System. Academic Press, August 1998.
Page Written by: Jennifer R. Schuster
Edited by: Dr. Lucy McFadden
Last Update: Puru Shetty (July 12, 2007)
Contact: pshetty@umd.edu