The European Geophysical Union held their annual meeting, in Vienna, At. You may ask what a “geophysical union” has to do with this site. Since Earth accreted from asteroids, geophysics has, oh… 99.99% to do with an asteroid site. Geochemistry and cosmochemistry are one chemistry; but one of them lost a lot of materials.
Jones, G. Snodgrass, C. Guilbert-Lepoutre, A. et al. Activities of the Comet Interceptor Comet En… 22216
Zivithal, S. Kargl, G. Macher, W. et al. Studying gas flow on comet surfaces with … 15837
Song, Y. Orbit Determination of Near-Earth Asteroids and Impact Effic… 4651
Vavilov, D. Hestroffer, D. Near-Earth Object’s Forecasting and Collisional Event (NEOForCE) … 19273
Grieger, B. de León, J. Goldberg, H. et al. Superresolution color images from the sparse data… 19491
Shober, P. Vaubaillon, J. Tancredi, G. et al. Unraveling the Origin of JFC-like Bodies … 3147
Galinier, M. Delbo, M. Avdellidou, C. et al. Search for a concentration of olivine-rich bodies… 6055
Vigren, E. Eriksson, A. I. Edberg, N. J. T. et al. On the question of when to settle for a … 9078
Mokhtari, O. Thomas, N. Gas sublimation through comet surface dust mant… 3875
Lai, H. Pan, L. Jia, Y et al. Highly collisional regions determined by Inter… 2629
And let’s not forget the Conference workshops:
Wed, 17 Apr 14:00 Elverfeldt, K. V. convener, et al. Short Course 2.10 From Misunderstanding to Malice: Countering Mis- and Disinformation
Yes, it’s a sad commentary that a field training course is being given on science misinformation (bad journalism, by journalists on deadline, not on point) and disinformation (not journalists at all, or not professional and responsible journalists: people posting to their own agenda, or maybe no agenda at all- bomb-throwers).
Okay, I’ve said what needed to be said. More prosaically, the Lai and Shober submissions tell us of small bodies as a wider population of components in the Solar System. Shober et al, specifically, posits (with data- not just conjecture) that a fraction of dark asteroids are actually the remnants of comets. And at that, some of the comets were Main-Belt comets- particularly ice-rich asteroids that had been previously orbiting in the outer Belt.
Speaking of comets, no shortage here. Jones et al. discusses, as one would expect, the ESA Comet Interceptor mission, but so does Vigren et al. And then we add Zivithal et al. and Mokhtari Thomas, covering the mechanisms of comet activity. How, exactly, do comets “lose stuff”- the defining characteristic (for practical purposes) of a comet? Rosetta failed to answer that question.
Asteroids (and comets, of course) must be examined, not merely spotted and logged. Follow-up includes better orbit determinations and, in turn, risk (impact) assessment- see the Song and Vavilov Hestroffer presentations. A tiny fraction of asteroids (and tinier fraction of comets) will get a spacecraft visit. Grieger et al. cover that, describing the ASPECT instrument aboard the Milani cubesat (itself carried aboard the Hera spacecraft). ASPECT- and the rest of the Hera mission, will thoroughly characterize the Didymos/Dimorphos binary asteroid, disturbed (and only briefly imaged, in black and white) by the prior DART mission.
Galinier et al. announces an initial report of olivine-rich asteroids. As I’ve mentioned, olivine is a mantle mineral, and therefore such asteroids are signs of Solar System history- a large progenitor asteroid formed a mantle, crust, and a core (“differentiation“), and was then shattered. These new announcements, if the conclusion pans out, would put us one step closer to tracing the “baby pictures”, and early-childhood, of rocky bodies like Earth, Mars, Venus, large asteroids, etc. And there’s your geophysics: every part of the Solar System bears some link to every other part of the Solar System; some links just happen to be more relevant than others. After Galinier et al., Song, and Vavilov Hestroffer, then tackle the question of (future) asteroids “accreting” with Earth after the festivities!