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# Program information file
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PROGRAM_ID           2024B062
PROGRAM_TITLE        Determining the surface freshness of small Main Belt Vestoids for comparison with near-Earth V-types
PROGRAM_INV1         Chansey Champagne
PROGRAM_INV2         Cristina Thomas
PROGRAM_INV3         Joshua Emery
PROGRAM_INV4          
PROGRAM_INV5          
PROGRAM_SCICAT       main-belt / Trojan asteroids
PROGRAM_ABSTRACT_BEG
Near-Earth V-types are an understudied group of asteroids. Previous studies looking at near-infrared spectra of near-Earth V-types and their main belt counterparts Vestoids, which are part of the [4] Vesta family, show that there is a significant difference in the slope of the linear continuum of their 0.9 micron pyroxene absorption bands. The Band I slopes of the near-Earth V-types tend to be lower than those of main belt Vestoids, which implies that the near-Earth objects have fresher surfaces that have not undergone as muchspace weathering. One potential explanation for the difference in surface freshness is that the majority of near-Earth V-types are smaller than the majority of main belt V-types, and due to collisional evolution, smaller asteroids tend to have younger surfaces. Therefore, we hypothesize that the cause of the band parameter discrepancy is the small size of near-Earth V-types compared to the larger, older main belt V-types. An alternative hypothesis would be that the observed difference is due to surface 'freshening' in near-Earth space that doesn't occur in the Main Belt. We are currently unaware of previous NIR observations of main belt Vestoids that are in the same size range as near-Earth V-types, therefore, to test these hypotheses, we will use SpeX prism to observe 10 main belt Vestoids in the size range of 1-3 km in the near-infrared. This will be done in about 7.5 hours over the course of a single night during August 1-10, 2024. The targets were chosen based on their size and airmass. The result would allow us to better understand the processes that affect asteroids as they enter planet-crossing space and how these processes are represented in their spectra.
PROGRAM_ABSTRACT_END