Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-767nl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-13T19:26:42.637Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

11 - Chemistry of anhydrous planetesimals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Harry Y. McSween, Jr
Affiliation:
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Gary R. Huss
Affiliation:
University of Hawaii, Manoa
Get access

Summary

Overview

Many asteroids are dry, as evidenced by meteorites in which water is virtually absent. These samples include many classes of chondrites, as well as melted chunks of the crusts, mantles, and cores of differentiated objects. Anhydrous bodies were important building blocks of the rocky terrestrial planets, and their chemical compositions reveal details of processes that occurred within our own planet on a larger scale. The distributions of these asteroids within the solar system also provide insights into their formation and evolution.

Dry asteroids and meteorites

Anhydrous planetesimals formed within the inner solar system, unlike the ice-bearing bodies discussed in the next chapter. These objects, composed of rock and metal, were the primary building blocks of the terrestrial planets. Relics of that population may survive today as asteroids that dominate the inner portions of the main belt.

Asteroids have been a focus of spectroscopic studies for decades. Spectra obtained from telescopes on the Earth can identify some of the minerals that make up asteroids, but do not measure asteroid chemistry. Nevertheless, spectroscopic matches can be used to link some meteorite classes to their probable parent bodies, and thus allow indirect assessments of their chemical compositions. A few asteroids have been visited and analyzed by spacecraft. Chemical analyses require long data integrations from orbit or actually landing on the surface, and analyses of only two small near-Earth asteroids have been reported.

Type
Chapter
Information
Cosmochemistry , pp. 382 - 411
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bottke, W. F., Cellino, A., Paolicchi, P. and Binzel, R. P., eds. (2002) Asteroids III, Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 785 pp. A wonderful, up-to-date resource on asteroids. The following chapters provide summaries of geology, taxonomy, and spectral interpretation, respectively:
Bus, S. J., Vilas, F. and Barucci, M. A. (2002) Visible-wavelength spectroscopy of asteroids, pp. 169–182.
Burbine, T. H., McCoy, T. J., Meibom, A., Gladman, B. and Keil, K. (2002) Meteoritic parent bodies: their number and identification, pp. 653–665.
Sullivan, R. J., Thomas, P. C., Murchie, S. L. and Robinson, M. S. (2002) Asteroid geology from Galileo and NEAR Shoemaker data, pp. 331–350.
Haack, H. and McCoy, T. J. (2004) Iron and stony-iron meteorites. In Treatise on Geochemistry, Vol. 1. Meteorites, Comets, and Planets, ed. Davis, A. M.Oxford: Elsevier, pp. 325–345. This excellent review summarizes the compositions of iron meteorites.Google Scholar
Jarosewich, E. (1990) Chemical analyses of meteorites: A compilation of stony and iron meteorite analyses. Meteoritics, 25, 323–337. A compilation of many years of painstaking wet-chemical analyses of representative chondrite powders. These analyses are especially useful because they distinguish the amounts of metallic iron and Fe2+.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mittlefehldt, D. W. (2004) Achondrites. In Treatise on Geochemistry, Vol. 1. Meteorites, Comets, and Planets, ed. Davis, A. M.Oxford: Elsevier, pp. 291–324. A superb review of achondritic meteorites, containing many high-quality analyses.Google Scholar
Bottke, W. F., Newvorny, D., Grimm, R. E., Morbidelli, A. and O'Brien, D. P. (2005) Iron meteorites as remnants of planetesimals formed in the terrestrial planet region. Nature, 439, 821–824.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brearley, A. J. and Jones, R. H. (1998) Chondritic meteorites. In Planetary Materials, Reviews in Mineralogy36, ed. Papike, J. J.Washington, D.C.: Mineralogical Society of America, pp. 3–1 to 3–398.Google Scholar
Chapman, C. R. (2002) Cratering on asteroids from Galileo and NEAR Shoemaker. In Asteroids III, eds. Bottke, W. F., Cellino, A., Paolicchi, P. and Binzel, R. P.Tucson: University of Arizona Press, pp. 315–330.Google Scholar
Clark, B. E., Hapke, B., Pieters, C. and Britt, D. (2002) Asteroid space weathering and regolith evolution. In Asteroids III, eds. Bottke, W. F., Cellino, A., Paolicchi, P. and Binzel, R. P.Tucson: University of Arizona Press, pp. 585–602.Google Scholar
Evans, L. G., Starr, R. D., Bruckner, J. et al. (2001) Elemental composition from gamma-ray spectroscopy of the NEAR-Shoemaker landing site on 433 Eros. Meteoritics and Planetary Science, 36, 1639–1660.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fujiwara, A., plus 21 coauthors (2006) The rubble-pile asteroid Itokawa as observed by Hayabusa. Science, 312, 1330–1334.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gaffey, M. J., Cloutis, E. A., Kelley, M. S. and Reed, K. L. (2002) Mineralogy of asteroids. In Asteroids III, eds. Bottke, W. F., Cellino, A., Paolicchi, P. and Binzel, R. P.Tucson: University of Arizona Press, pp. 183–204.Google Scholar
Ghosh, A. and McSween, H. Y. (1998) A thermal model for the differentiation of asteroid 4 Vesta, based on radiogenic heating. Icarus, 134, 187–206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ghosh, A., Weidenschilling, S. J., McSween, H. Y. and Rubin, A. (2006) Asteroid heating and thermal stratification of the asteroid belt. In Meteorites and the Early Solar System II, eds. Lauretta, D. S. and McSween, H. Y.. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, pp. 555–566.Google Scholar
Gradie, J. C. and Tedesco, E. F. (1982) Compositional structure of the asteroid belt. Science, 216, 1405–1407.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Grimm, R. E. and McSween, H. Y. (1993) Heliocentric zoning of the asteroid belt by aluminum-26 heating. Science, 259, 653–655.Google Scholar
Haack, H., Rasmussen, K. L. and Warren, P. H. (1990) Effects of regolith/megaregolith insulation on the cooling histories of differentiated asteroids. Journal of Geophysical Research, 95, 5111–5124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herbert, F. and Sonnett, C. P. (1980) Electromagnetic inductive heating of the asteroids and moon as evidence bearing on the primordial solar wind. In The Ancient Sun, eds. Pepin, R. O., Eddy, J. A. and Merrill, R. B.New York: Pergamon, pp. 563–576.Google Scholar
Kallemeyn, G. W., Rubin, A. E., Wang, D. and Wasson, J. T. (1989) Ordinary chondrites: Bulk compositions, classification, lithophile-element fractionations, and composition-petrographic type relationships. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 53, 2747–2767.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keil, K., Stoffler, D., Love, S. G. and Scott, E. R. D. (1997) Constraints on the role of impact heating and melting in asteroids. Meteoritics and Planetary Science, 32, 349–363.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krot, A. N., Keil, K., Goodrich, C. A., Scott, E. R. D. and Weisberg, M. K. (2003) Classification of meteorites. In Treatise on Geochemistry, Vol. 1. Meteorites, Comets, and Planets, ed. Davis, A. M.Oxford: Elsevier, pp. 83–128.Google Scholar
Lauretta, D. S. and Killgore, M. (2005) A Color Atlas of Meteorites in Thin Section. Tucson: Golden Retriever Publications, 301 pp.Google Scholar
Lodders, K. and Fegley, B.. (1998). The Planetary Scientist's Companion. New York: Oxford University Press, 371 pp.Google Scholar
McCoy, T. J.et al. (2001) The composition of 433 Eros: a mineralogical-chemical synthesis. Meteoritics and Planetary Science, 36, 1661–1672.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McSween, H. Y., Ghosh, A., Grimm, R. E., Wilson, L. and Young, E. D. (2003) Thermal evolution models of asteroids. In Asteroids III, eds. Bottke, W. F., Cellino, A., Paolicchi, P. and Binzel, R. P.Tucson: University of Arizona Press, pp. 559–571.Google Scholar
McSween, H. Y. and Labotka, T. C. (1993) Oxidation during metamorphism of the ordinary chondrites. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 57, 1105–1114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mittlefehldt, D. W., McCoy, T. J., Goodrich, C. A. and Kracher, A. (1998) Non-chondritic meteorites from asteroidal bodies. In Planetary Materials, Reviews in Mineralogy 36, ed. Papike, J. J., Washington: Mineralogical Society of America, pp. 4–1 to 4–195.Google Scholar
Mothe-Diniz, T., Carvano, J. M. and Lazzaro, D. (2003) Distribution of taxonomic classes in the main belt of asteroids. Icarus, 162, 10–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nittler, L. R. and 15 coauthors (2001) X-ray fluorescence measurements of the surface elemental composition of asteroid 433 Eros. Meteoritics and Planetary Science, 36, 1673–1695.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Okada, T., Shirai, K., Yamanoto, Y.et al. (2006) X-ray fluorescence spectrometry of asteroid Itokawa by Hayabusa. Science, 312, 1338–1341.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pieters, C. M., Taylor, L. A., Noble, S. K.et al. (2000) Space weathering on airless bodies: resolving a mystery with lunar samples. Meteoritics and Planetary Science, 35, 1101–1107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Slater-Reynolds, V. and McSween, H. Y. (2005) Peak metamorphic temperatures in type 6 ordinary chondrites: an evaluation of pyroxene and plagioclase geothermometry. Meteoritics and Planetary Science, 40, 745–754.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tholen, D. J. (1984) Asteroid Taxonomy from Cluster Analysis of Photometry. Ph.D. thesis, University of Arizona, Tucson.Google Scholar
Tholen, D. J. and Barucci, M. A. (1989) Asteroid taxonomy. In Asteroids II, eds. Bottke, W. F., Cellino, A., Paolicchi, P. and Binzel, R. P.Tucson: University of Arizona Press, pp. 298–315.Google Scholar
Yang, J. and Goldstein, J. I. (2005) The formation of the Widmanstatten structure in meteorites. Meteoritics and Planetary Science, 40, 239–253.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×