¹Philip. J. Carter, ¹Zoë. M. Leinhardt, ²Tim Elliott, ²Michael J. Walter, ³Sarah T. Stewart
¹School of Physics, University of Bristol, H. H. Wills Physics Laboratory, Tyndall Avenue, Bristol BS8 1TL, UK
²School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Wills Memorial Building, Queen’s Road, Bristol BS8 1RJ, UK
³Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA

The Earth appears non-chondritic in its abundances of refractory lithophile elements, posing a significant problem for our understanding of its formation and evolution. It has been suggested that this non-chondritic composition may be explained by collisional erosion of differentiated planetesimals of originally chondritic composition. In this work, we present N-body simulations of terrestrial planet formation that track the growth of planetary embryos from planetesimals. We simulate evolution through the runaway and oligarchic growth phases under the Grand Tack model and in the absence of giant planets. These simulations include a state-of-the-art collision model that allows multiple collision outcomes, such as accretion, erosion, and bouncing events, and enables tracking of the evolving core mass fraction of accreting planetesimals. We show that the embryos grown during this intermediate stage of planet formation exhibit a range of core mass fractions, and that with significant dynamical excitation, enough mantle can be stripped from growing embryos to account for the Earth’s non-chondritic Fe/Mg ratio. We also find that there is a large diversity in the composition of remnant planetesimals, with both iron-rich and silicate-rich fragments produced via collisions.

Reference
Carter PJ, Leinhardt ZM, Elliott T, Walter MJ, Stewart ST (2015) COMPOSITIONAL EVOLUTION DURING ROCKY PROTOPLANET ACCRETION. Astrophysical Journal 813, 72
Link to Article [http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/813/1/72]

^1,2Vishnu Reddy et al. (>10)*
¹Planetary Science Institute, 1700 East Fort Lowell Road, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA
²Visiting Astronomer at the Infrared Telescope Facility
*Find the extensive, full author and affiliation list on the publishers website

The physical characterization of potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs) is important for impact hazard assessment and evaluating mitigation options. Close flybys of PHAs provide an opportunity to study their surface photometric and spectral properties that enable the identification of their source regions in the main asteroid belt. We observed PHA (357439) 2004 BL86 during a close flyby of the Earth at a distance of 1.2 million km (0.0080 AU) on 2015 January 26, with an array of ground-based telescopes to constrain its photometric and spectral properties. Lightcurve observations showed that the asteroid was a binary and subsequent radar observations confirmed the binary nature and gave a primary diameter of 300 m and a secondary diameter of 50–100 m. Our photometric observations were used to derive the phase curve of 2004 BL86 in the V-band. Two different photometric functions were fitted to this phase curve, the IAU H–G model and the Shevchenko model. From the fit of the H–G function we obtained an absolute magnitude of H = 19.51 ± 0.02 and a slope parameter of G = 0.34 ± 0.02. The Shevchenko function yielded an absolute magnitude of H = 19.03 ± 0.07 and a phase coefficient b = 0.0225 ± 0.0006. The phase coefficient was used to calculate the geometric albedo (Ag) using the relationship found by Belskaya & Schevchenko, obtaining a value of Ag = 40% ± 8% in the V-band. With the geometric albedo and the absolute magnitudes derived from the H–G and the Shevchenko functions we calculated the diameter (D) of 2004 BL86, obtaining D = 263 ± 26 and D = 328 ± 35 m, respectively. 2004 BL86 spectral band parameters and pyroxene chemistry are consistent with non-cumulate eucrite meteorites. A majority of these meteorites are derived from Vesta and are analogous with surface lava flows on a differentiated parent body. A non-diagnostic spectral curve match using the Modeling for Asteroids tool yielded a best-match with non-cumulate eucrite Bereba. Three other near-Earth asteroids (1993 VW, 1998 KK17, and 2000 XH44) that were observed by Burbine et al. also have spectral properties similar to 2004 BL86. The presence of eucrites with anomalous oxygen isotope ratios compared to the howardites, eucrites, and diogenites meteorites from Vesta suggests the possible presence of multiple differentiated bodies in the inner main belt or the contamination of Vesta’s surface with exogenic material. The spectral properties of both anomalous and Vestan eucrites are degenerate, making it difficult to identify the parent bodies of anomalous eucrites in the main belt and the NEO population using remote sensing. This makes it difficult to link 2004 BL86 directly to Vesta, although the Vesta family is the largest contributor of V-types to near-Earth space.

Reference
Reddy V et al. (2015) THE PHYSICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF THE POTENTIALLY HAZARDOUS ASTEROID 2004 BL86: A FRAGMENT OF A DIFFERENTIATED ASTEROID. Astrophysical Journal (in Press)
Link to Article [http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/811/1/65]

¹Pia Friend,^1,2Dominik C. Hezel, ¹Daniel Mucerschi
¹University of Cologne, Department of Geology and Mineralogy, Zülpicher Str. 49b, 50674 Köln, Germany
²Natural History Museum, Department of Mineralogy, Cromwell Road, SW7 5BD, London, UK

We studied the texture of 256 chondrules in thin sections of 16 different carbonaceous (CV, CR, CO, CM, CH) and Rumuruti chondrites. In a conservative count ∼75% of all chondrules are mineralogically zoned, i.e. these chondrules have an olivine core, surrounded by a low-Ca pyroxene rim. A realistic estimate pushes the fraction of zoned chondrules to >90% of all chondrules. Mineralogically zoned chondrules are the dominant and typical chondrule type in carbonaceous and Rumuruti chondrites. The formation of the mineralogical zonation represents a fundamentally important process of chondrule formation. The classic typification of chondrules into PO, POP and PP might in fact represent different sections through mineralogically zoned chondrules. On average, the low-Ca pyroxene rims occupy 30 vol.% of the entire chondrule. The low-Ca pyroxene most probably formed by reaction of an olivine rich chondrule with SiO from the surrounding gas. This reaction adds 3-15 wt.% of material, mainly SiO2, to the chondrule. Chondrules were open systems and interacted substantially with the surrounding gas. This is in agreement with many previous studies on chondrule formation. This open system behaviour and the exchange of material with the surrounding gas can explain bulk chondrule compositional variations in a single meteorite and supports the findings from complementarity that chondrules and matrix formed from the same chemical reservoir.

Reference
Friend P, Hezel DC, Mucerschi D (2015) The conditions of chondrule formation, Part II: Open System. Geochimica et Cosmochimica (in Press)
Link to Article [doi:10.1016/j.gca.2015.10.026]
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