| Issue |
A&A
Volume 425, Number 2, October II 2004
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Page(s) | L25 - L28 | |
| Section | Letters | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:200400054 | |
| Published online | 21 September 2004 | |
Letter to the Editor
Visible spectral properties of asteroid 21 Lutetia, target of Rosetta Mission*
Dipartimento di Astronomia, Università di Padova, Vicolo dell'Osservatorio 2, 35122 Padova, Italy e-mail: [lazzarin;marchi;s.magrin;barbieri]@pd.astro.it
Received:
17
June
2004
Accepted:
10
August
2004
Rosetta spacecraft was successfully launched on March 2nd 2004 after its launch postponement in January 2003. Owing to this delay all the original targets, comet and asteroids, have been changed. In particular, on its 10 years journey to the new comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the spacecraft will pass close to the asteroid 21 Lutetia. In this paper we present three visible spectra of 21 Lutetia covering its rotational period. We have not found big surface composition variations and the overall behavior resembles that of a C-type asteroid. However, we discovered two main features which are present on the three spectra at around 0.43 and 0.51 μm probably due to aqueous alteration and porphyrins respectively.
Key words: visible spectroscopy / Rosetta target
© ESO, 2004
Current usage metrics show cumulative count of Article Views (full-text article views including HTML views, PDF and ePub downloads, according to the available data) and Abstracts Views on Vision4Press platform.
Data correspond to usage on the plateform after 2015. The current usage metrics is available 48-96 hours after online publication and is updated daily on week days.
Initial download of the metrics may take a while.