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Photolysis and Sublimation Chemistry of Ammonium Cyanide with Relevance to Cometary Environments
Gerakines, P. A.; Milam, S. N.; Yocum, K. M. +3 more
Bulk nitrogen is depleted in solar system objects, including the terrestrial planets, chondritic meteorites, and comets. Recently, it was suggested that cometary nitrogen may be locked up in ammonium salts—ionic solids comprising ammonia (NH3) and an acid such as hydrogen cyanide (HCN)—based on Rosetta/ROSINA data from comet 67P/Churyum…
Can Well-sampled Phase Curves Be Used to Infer Asteroid Spectral Features?
Murray, Zachary
The relationship of an asteroid's reduced magnitude to its phase has a long history of study. Included in this history have been efforts to study the correlation between these parameters and spectral type. However, these efforts often suffer from the inclusion of only a few asteroids, missing phase curve data, uncorrected rotational or apparitiona…
Ground-based Characterization of (98943) Torifune 2001 CC21, the Target of the Hayabusa2# Space Mission
Tatsumi, Eri; de León, Julia; Licandro, Javier +11 more
The near-Earth asteroid (98943) Torifune, previously designated 2001 CC21, is the flyby target of the Hayabusa2 extended mission, nicknamed Hayabusa2# (Small Hazardous Asteroid Reconnaissance Probe (SHARP)). The ground-based telescope observations offer a key science input for the mission's scientific investigation. During 2022–2024, th…
Observations and Quantitative Compositional Analysis of Ceres, Pallas, and Hygiea Using JWST/NIRSpec
Ehlmann, Bethany L.; Rivkin, Andrew S.; Hammel, Heidi B. +6 more
We present JWST Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) measurements of the three largest low-albedo main-belt asteroids: (1) Ceres, (2) Pallas, and (10) Hygiea. Their reflectance spectra all have very similar absorptions centered near 2.72 µm attributed to Mg–OH in minerals. Within this band, Pallas also shows evidence of a sharper, deeper ban…
A Case Study of Interstellar Material Delivery: α Centauri
Wiegert, Paul A.; Gregg, Cole R.
Interstellar material has been discovered in our solar system, yet its origins and details of its transport are unknown. Here, we present α Centauri as a case study of the delivery of interstellar material to our solar system. α Centauri is a mature triple star system that likely harbors planets, and is moving toward us with the point of the close…