McSween¹ et al. (>>10)*
*Find the extensive, full author and affiliation list on the publishers website.

¹Planetary Geoscience Institute and Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA

The Dawn mission has provided new evidence strengthening the identification of asteroid Vesta as the parent body of the howardite, eucrite, and diogenite (HED) meteorites. The evidence includes Vesta’s petrologic complexity, detailed spectroscopic characteristics, unique space weathering, diagnostic geochemical abundances and neutron absorption characteristics, chronology of surface units and impact history, occurrence of exogenous carbonaceous chondritic materials in the regolith, and dimensions of the core, all of which are consistent with HED observations and constraints. Global mapping of the distributions of HED lithologies by Dawn cameras and spectrometers provides the missing geologic context for these meteorites, thereby allowing tests of petrogenetic models and increasing their scientific value.

Reference
McSween HY et al. (in press) Dawn; the Vesta–HED connection; and the geologic context for eucrites, diogenites, and howardites. Meteoritics & Planetary Science
[doi:10.1111/maps.12108]
Published by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons

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