Asteroids

What Are Asteroids? Origin Of The Asteroids Types Of Asteroids Asteroid Families Near-Earth Asteroids Asteroids In The Outer Solar System

Asteroids, sometimes called "minor planets," are composed of rock, metal, or both. Most meteorites probably originate as fragments of asteroids. Asteroids range in diameter from a meter up to 933 kilometers for the largest known asteroid, Ceres. Most asteroids orbit the sun in the main asteroid belt, a flat ring which lies between the orbits of the fourth planet Mars and the fifth planet Jupiter. The main asteroid belt is defined as reaching from 2.2 to 3.3 AU (1 AU is the average distance of the Earth from the Sun). Over 7,000 main belt asteroids are now known. There may be over a million at least one kilometer in diameter. The total mass of all these asteroids is less than 0.09% that of the Earth's Moon.

Gaspra (NASA photo) The main belt asteroid 951 Gaspra was photographed by the Galileo spacecraft on its way to Jupiter. Gaspra is irregularly shaped, about 19 x 12 x 11 kilometers in size. The ratio of small to large craters on Gaspra's surface suggests Gaspra formed relatively recently (e.g., about 200 million years ago) during the collisional breakup of a parent body perhaps ten times the current size of Gaspra. The main asteroid belt contains several regions in orbital resonance with Jupiter called Kirkwood gaps. The Kirkwood gaps appear at distances from the Sun that are ratios of integer multiples of Jupiter's orbital radius. Hence these Kirkwood gaps have been cleared of asteroids by the gravitional "nudges" applied by Jupiter.

Origin Of The Asteroids

The main belt asteroids are believed to be the remnants of a planet which never formed. The gravitational influence of Jupiter prevented the small bodies from coalescing. Over the eons the asteroids have collided with each other, forming smaller fragments. Some of the larger asteroids underwent differentiation, resulting in an iron core and a rocky mantle, like the terrestrial planets. Other asteroids remained in an essentially unchanged and primitive undifferentiated state. Astronomers suggest two principal possible mechanisms by which the asteroids became hot enough to differentiate.

• The decay of radioactive elements such as Aluminum 26 into magnesium 26 releases heat. Both Aluminum 26 and Magnesium 26 have been found in differentiated meteorites. Since some asteroids were melted, others merely heated, and others left cold, this implies that the distribution of radioactive elements was not uniform in the primeval solar system nebula.

• Early in its lifetime the Sun's solar wind -- a plasma the Sun emits -- may have carried an intense electrical charge. (The Sun still emits a solar wind, but it carries a neutral charge.) The electrical and magnetic fields induced by the charged plasma could have heated asteroids (and other objects) to their melting point if their electrical conductivity was sufficiently high.

A mystery is why some asteroids differentiated and some did not even though they were of similar size and distance from the Sun. For example, the largest asteroid, Ceres, appears to be undifferentiated, while the smaller asteroid Vesta appears highly differentiated. In fact, as noted below, the majority of asteroids (about 75%) are undifferentiated carbonaceous chondrites.

An alternative hypothesis is that the asteroids are fragments of one or more exploded planets. This was a popular hypothesis during the nineteenth and early twentieth century, but it has fallen out of favor with most astronomers. One reason is that it is difficult to imagine a mechanism whereby a planet could explode. Another is that the distribution of asteroid types (see below) seems to militate against the exploded planet hypothesis. A few astronomers still hold to the exploded planet hypothesis. Tom Van Flandern is probably the best known in the United States. He actually suggests three planets exploded over the age of the Solar System in the area of the main asteroid belt.

Types Of Asteroids

In terms of chemical composition, asteroids are classified into several main groups:

• C-type asteroids comprise about 75% of all known asteroids. C-type asteroids are dark objects exhibiting an albedo of about 0.03 . Their composition resembles that of carbonaceous meteorites. The largest asteroid, Ceres, is a C-type asteroid.

• S-type asteroids comprise about 17% of all known asteroids. S-type asteroids are fairly bright with an albedo of .10 to .22 . They are composed of nickel and iron mixed with iron and magnesium silicates. Their composition resembles that of stony-iron meteorites. Gaspra is an S-type asteroid.

• M-type asteroids comprise most of the remaining 8% of asteroids. M-type asteroids are also fairly bright with albedos of .10 to .18. They are composed of almost pure nickel and iron. Their composition is similar to that of iron meteorites.

The inner portion of the main belt consists mostly of S-type asteroids. This graduates smoothly through M-type in the middle of the belt to to predominantly C-type in the outer main belt. This smooth transition is a standard argument against the exploded planet hypothesis for the origin of the asteroids. An explosion would most likely result in a random scatter of asteroid types through the main belt.

Fragment of Millbillillie Meteorite -- a piece of Vesta? There are about a dozen or so other rare classification types. The fourth largest asteroid, Vesta, is the main member of the V-class. Vesta is about 576 km in diameter. It appears to be differentiated into layers like the terrestrial planets. Vesta may be the source of some groups of stony meteorites, in particular, the Howardites, Eucrites, and Diogenites (HEDs). The Béréba meteorite (see image of fragment in table) is a Eucrite which may have come from vesta. The Millbillilie meteorite is a Diogenite. Its pyroxene spectral signature matches Vesta's very closely. Several other small asteroids in Vesta's neighborhood exhibit the same unique pyroxene signature. They too may be fragments blasted from the surface of Vesta by impact events. Collisions between asteroids in the main belt occur with an average velocity of 5 km/sec. This is ample to cause energetic impacts. Astronomers suggest that Millbillillie was originally part of such a fragment that broke up in subsequent collisions, ended up in a Kirkwood gap, and was redirected by gravitational nudges onto a collision course with Earth. The Hubble Space Telescope revealed Vesta possesses a giant impact basin that may be the site of the original collision that produced Millbillillie and other HED meteorites.

Asteroid Families

About half of all the main belt asteroids occur in families. More than one hundred separate families have so far been identified. Families are probably the fragments of disrupted parent bodies. For example, the Eos family with about 60 members is thought to comprise the fragments of a parent object around 100 kilometers in diameter. The Themis family of C-type asteroids contains over 100 members. Its parent may have been 300 km in diameter. The parent of the S-type Koronis family with about 60 members may have been 90 km in diameter.

Near-Earth Asteroids

Some asteroids pursue orbits which cross those of the inner planets, including the Earth. Asteroids which approach the Earth are called Near Earth Asteroids or NEAs for short. Some of these near Earth asteroids were originally main belt asteroids perturbed out of their original orbits by the gravitational influence of the planets. Others appear to be extinct comets. Near-Earth asteroids are divided into four general classes based upon the relative location of their orbits to that of the Earth:

• The orbits of the Amor asteroids cross the orbit of Mars but do not reach sunwards as far as the Earth's orbit. These Amors are named after asteroid 1221 Amor.

• The orbits of the Apollo asteroids actually cross Earth's orbit. The average distance of an Apollo object is always the same or greater than the distance of the Earth's orbit (1 AU). Some Apollos follow orbits which reach closer to the Sun than Mercury. The Apollos are named after asteroid 1862 Apollo.

• The orbits of the Aten asteroids also cross the Earth's orbit, but their average distance from the sun is less than the Earth's orbit (1 AU). The Atens are named after asteroid 2062 Aten.

• The orbits of the Arjuna asteroids never take them further from the Sun than the Earth's orbit. Such asteroids are particularly dangerous because they approach the Earth from the daytime part of the sky where they can't easily be seen. The first known Arjuna, 1998 DK36, was found in 1998 by David Tholen and his graduate student Robert Whiteley.

These four groups of asteroids are also referred to collectively as Apollos. Gravitational perturbations can shift a member of one near-Earth asteroid group to another. These near-Earth asteroids pose a significant danger since many will eventually strike the Earth. For example, about 700 of the approximately 2,000 near-Earth asteroids larger than 1 km in diameter will eventually strike the Earth. On the other hand, the Apollo asteroids present an opportunity for mining of raw materials since the Apollos are more easily reached than asteroids in the main belt.

Toutatis (NASA photo) The chaotic orbit of the Apollo asteroid 4179 Toutatis shown at the right reaches from just inside Earth's orbit out to the main asteroid belt. Toutatis appears to be a "contact binary" consisting of two objects which have fused together. On September 29, 2004 Toutatis will pass by the Earth at a distance only about four times that of the Moon. Toutatis tumbles in a complex way as it rotates. This irregular rotation may be a relic of Toutatis's violent collisional past.

Asteroids In The Outer Solar System

There are two other groups of asteroids located outside the main asteroid belt.

• Trojan asteroids reside in the Lagrange equilibrium points 60° ahead and behind the planet Jupiter's orbit. Trojans resemble dark type-C asteroids like those found in the outer portion of the main asteroid belt. Jupiter has at least a few hundred Trojans; there may be several thousand. Mars also has at least one Trojan, 5261 Eureka. It is possible that Earth and Venus also have a small number of Trojans, but they have not yet been discovered. Near-Earth asteroid 3753 Cruithne follows a curious spiraling horseshoe orbit which it shares with the Earth. 3753 Cruithne's orbit is stable. The asteroid's motion prevents a collision with the Earth.

• Centaur asteroids reside outside the orbit of Jupiter. Some Centaurs may be extinct comets. The Centaurs include some very reddish objects of unknown composition similar in appearance to the transneptunian objects of the Edgeworth/Kuiper belt.

Meteorite specimens shown here come from my personal collection.
Asteroid photos courtesy NASA.

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