Advances in determining asteroid chemistries and mineralogies
Thomas H. Burbine
Chemie der Erde – Geochemistry
Review article
In Press, Corrected Proof, Available online 23 December 2015
doi:10.1016/j.chemer.2015.09.003
“Considerable progress has been made in the last few years in determining asteroid chemistries and mineralogies. Dedicated spacecraft missions have allowed mineralogical predictions based on ground-based data to be confirmed or refuted. These missions include NEAR-Shoemaker to (253) Mathilde and (433) Eros, Hayabusa to (25143) Itokawa, and Dawn to (4) Vesta and (1) Ceres, the upcoming Hayabusa2 to (162173) Ryugu, and the upcoming OSIRIS-Rex to (101955) Bennu. All of these missions have or will make significant advances that could not have been made through just Earth-based observations. The recovery of Almahata Sitta from 2008 TC3 was a rare opportunity to recover meteorite samples from a spectrally observed body from a naturally occurring event. This review will discuss the importance of spacecraft missions to asteroids.”
