Mineralogical characterization of asteroids and space exploration 2

In force date
Investigator
Julia de
León Cruz
Amount granted to the IAC Consortium
69.050,00 €
Description

This project is a continuation of the CAMINA project (ProID2017010112). The science objective is the compositional characterization of asteroids, that we have been doing by means of three actions:

(1) our participation in the two space missions that have visited and taken a sample of material from two near-Earth asteroids (NEAs), OSIRIS-REx (NASA) and Hayabusa2 (JAXA), as well in the Hera mission (ESA), that aims at studying the effects of an impact on the satellite of a binary NEA.

(2) the compositional characterization of collisional families and asteroid groups considered the origin of targeted NEAs of OSIRIS-REx and Hayabusa2.

(3) the study and characterization of other NEAs considered as potential targets of future space missions, radar studies, as well as asteroids classified as potentially hazardous (PHAs).

With the presentation of this project we want to obtain the financial support needed to fund the activities of the research team for the next 3 years to achieve these objectives.

Asteroids contain the materials that originated our Solar System, and have almost not suffered from alteration since then. In addition, many of these objects contain hydrated silicates, that need to be in contact with liquid water during thousands of years in order to be generated, as well as organic compounds considered precursors of life. Therefore, the compositional study of asteroids will help us to better understand the origin of the Solar System, the planet formation and, ultimately the appearance of water and life on Earth. Furthermore, the characterization of NEAs that are candidates to be visited by space mission in the future includes those that get really close to the Earth and that are considered as potentially hazardous. This very first step is fundamental to develop mitigation strategies for future impacts with the Earth, minimize their effects and establish planetary defence protocols.

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Minor Bodies of the Solar System

This project studies the physical and compositional properties of the so-called minor bodies of the Solar System, that includes asteroids, icy objects, and comets. Of special interest are the trans-neptunian objects (TNOs), including those considered the most distant objects detected so far (Extreme-TNOs or ETNOs); the comets and the comet-asteroid

Julia de
León Cruz