Detection of ice and organics on an asteroidal surface

Andrew S. Rivkin () and Joshua P. Emery
Additional contact information
Andrew S. Rivkin: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland 20723, USA
Joshua P. Emery: University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996, USA

Nature, 2010, vol. 464, issue 7293, 1322-1323

Abstract: Ice on asteroid 24 Themis Two groups, both using the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) on Mauna Kea in Hawaii but independently, have obtained infrared spectra of the main-belt asteroid 24 Themis consistent with the widespread presence of a frosty coating containing water ice and organics. Although the presence of water on the surface of some asteroids had been inferred from the comet-like activity of several small asteroids, these are the first actual measurements of water and organics in the asteroid belt. The presence of surface ice is particularly surprising because of the relatively short lifetime that exposed ice has at this distance from the Sun — between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

Date: 2010
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09028 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:464:y:2010:i:7293:d:10.1038_nature09028

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature09028

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().