The Mass of (4) Vesta Derived From Its Largest Gravitational Effects

Kuzmanoski, M.; Apostolovska, G.; Novaković, Bojan

doi:10.1088/0004-6256/140/3/880

Cited by 14 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Current best estimates are summarized in Table 1. Vesta's mass has been determined from perturbations of Vesta by other asteroids (Michalak 2000;Baer and Chesley 2008;Kuzmanoski et al 2010), by the perturbation of Mars' orbit by Vesta (Standish 2001;Pitjeva 2005;Konopliv et al 2006Konopliv et al , 2011aFienga et al 2009), and by perturbation of the orbit of asteroid 433 Eros by Vesta using the range data from the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft (Konopliv et al 2002(Konopliv et al , 2011a. Vesta is the second most massive asteroid, though its mass is only 28% of Ceres (Pitjeva 2005); currently Vesta's mass has an uncertainty of ∼2%.…”

Section: Mass Shape/volume and Bulk Densitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Origin, Internal Structure and Evolution of 4 Vesta

et al. 2011

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Asteroid 4 Vesta is the only preserved intact example of a large, differentiated protoplanet like those believed to be the building blocks of terrestrial planet accretion. Vesta accreted rapidly from the solar nebula in the inner asteroid belt and likely melted due to heat released due to the decay of 26 Al. Analyses of meteorites from the howardite-eucritediogenite (HED) suite, which have been both spectroscopically and dynamically linked to Vesta, lead to a model of the asteroid with a basaltic crust that overlies a depleted peridotitic mantle and an iron core. Vesta's crust may become more mafic with depth and might have been intruded by plutons arising from mantle melting. Constraints on the asteroid's moments of inertia from the long-wavelength gravity field, pole position and rotation, informed by bulk composition estimates, allow tradeoffs between mantle density and core size; cores of up to half the planetary radius can be consistent with plausible mantle compositions. The asteroid's present surface is expected to consist of widespread volcanic terrain, modified extensively by impacts that exposed the underlying crust or possibly the mantle. Hemispheric heterogeneity has been observed by poorly resolved imaging of the surface that suggests the possibility of a physiographic dichotomy as occurs on other terrestrial planets. Vesta might have had an early magma ocean but details of the early thermal structure are far from clear owing to model uncertainties and paradoxical observations from the HEDs. Petrological analysis of the eucrites coupled with thermal evolution modeling recognizes two possible mechanisms of silicate-metal differentiation leading to the formation of the basaltic M.T. Zuber et al.achondrites: equilibrium partial melting or crystallization of residual liquid from the cooling magma ocean. A firmer understanding the plethora of complex physical and chemical processes that contribute to melting and crystallization will ultimately be required to distinguish among these possibilities. The most prominent physiographic feature on Vesta is the massive south polar basin, whose formation likely re-oriented the body axis of the asteroid's rotation. The large impact represents the likely major mechanism of ejection of fragments that became the HEDs. Observations from the Dawn mission hold the promise of revolutionizing our understanding of 4 Vesta, and by extension, the nature of collisional, melting and differentiation processes in the nascent solar system. Large Asteroids as Planetary EmbryosThe largest asteroids are central to understanding nascent planetary evolution, and among these 4 Vesta plays a unique role in the reconstruction of the physical and chemical processes that comprise collectively terrestrial planet accretion. Vesta is alone among the largest asteroids in having a basaltic crust (McCord et al. 1970) indicative of silicate volcanic and/or plutonic processes (Binzel et al. 2003). Observations of surface spectra (McCord et al. 1970;Binzel and Xu 1993) in concert with information on ...

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Section: Mass Shape/volume and Bulk Densitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Origin, Internal Structure and Evolution of 4 Vesta

et al. 2011

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“…Although individual volume estimates claim uncertainties near 1%, the reported values differ by 5%. As with Vesta, the mass of Ceres is also known from asteroid close encounters (Michalak 2000;Baer et al 2008) and from the effect on the Mars ephemeris (Standish 2001;Pitjeva 2005;Konopliv et al 2006Konopliv et al , 2011Fienga et al 2009) with (2000) 17.8 ± 0.2 134.1 ± 1.5 Standish (2001) 17.84 ± 0.27 134.4 ± 2.0 Pitjeva (2005) 18.03 ± 0.21 135.8 ± 1.6 Konopliv et al (2006) 17.51 ± 0.04 131.9 ± 0.3 Baer et al (2008) 17.9 ± 0.4 135 ± 3 Pitjeva and Standish (2009) 17.26 ± 0.04 130.0 ± 0.1 Kuzmanoski et al (2010) 17 (2000) 63.2 ± 0.2 476.2 ± 1.5 Standish (2001) 63.08 ± 0.27 475.3 ± 2.0 Pitjeva (2005) 62.36 ± 0.37 469.9 ± 2.8 Konopliv et al (2006) 63.11 ± 0.11 475.5 ± 0.8 Baer et al (2008) 62.6 ± 0.4 472 ± 3 Pitjeva and Standish (2009) 62.10 ± 0.43 467.9 ± 3.3 Konopliv et al (2011) an accuracy of about 2% (see Table 1). The Dawn mission will improve knowledge of the mass of Ceres by more than two orders of magnitude in comparison to current estimates.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…The most recent mass estimates (see Table 1) have an uncertainty near 2%. The mass estimates for Vesta are derived from close flybys of other asteroids with Vesta (Michalak 2000;Baer et al 2008; see home.earthlink.net/~jimbaer1/astmass.txt; Kuzmanoski et al 2010), the effect of Vesta on the Mars ephemeris (Standish 2001;Pitjeva 2005;Konopliv et al 2006Konopliv et al , 2011Fienga et al 2009), the effect of Vesta on the orbit of Eros using the NEAR range data (Konopliv et al , 2011, and a proposed range of values (Pitjeva and Standish 2009). The Dawn gravity and mission design studies have adopted a value of GM = 17.5 km 3 /s 2 for Vesta, picked to be in the middle of the probable range of values (17.3-17.8 km 3 /s 2 ) from the latest studies.…”

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confidence: 99%

The Dawn Gravity Investigation at Vesta and Ceres

et al. 2011

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The objective of the Dawn gravity investigation is to use high precision X-band Doppler tracking and landmark tracking from optical images to measure the gravity fields of Vesta and Ceres to a half-wavelength surface resolution better than 90-km and 300-km, respectively. Depending on the Doppler tracking assumptions, the gravity field will be determined to somewhere between harmonic degrees 15 and 25 for Vesta and about degree 10 for Ceres. The gravity fields together with shape models determined from Dawn's framing camera constrain models of the interior from the core to the crust. The gravity field is determined jointly with the spin pole location. The second degree harmonics together with assumptions on obliquity or hydrostatic equilibrium may determine the moments of inertia.

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“…Lyapunov times become, on average, shorter when the massive asteroids are included in the dynamical model. There are, how-4 For this purpose, the masses of Ceres, Vesta and Pallas are set to 4.757, 1.300 and 1.010 × 10 −10 M , respectively (Kuzmanoski, Apostolovska & Novaković 2010;Baer, Chesley & Matson 2011). These masses are results of the latest calculations performed by means of the improved methodology.…”

Section: Dynamicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent collisional jet from a primitive asteroid

Novaković

Dell’Oro

Cellino

et al. 2012

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Here we show an example of a young asteroid cluster located in a dynamically stable region, which was produced by partial disruption of a primitive body about 30 km in size. We estimate its age to be only 1.9 +/- 0.3 Myr, thus its post-impact evolution should have been very limited. The large difference in size between the largest object and the other cluster members means that this was a cratering event. The parent body had a large orbital inclination, and was subject to collisions with typical impact speeds higher by a factor of 2 than in the most common situations encountered in the main belt. For the first time we have at disposal the observable outcome of a very recent event to study high-speed collisions involving primitive asteroids, providing very useful constraints to numerical simulations of these events and to laboratory experiments.Comment: Accepted for publication by MNRA

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The Mass of (4) Vesta Derived From Its Largest Gravitational Effects

Cited by 14 publications

References 18 publications

Origin, Internal Structure and Evolution of 4 Vesta

Origin, Internal Structure and Evolution of 4 Vesta

The Dawn Gravity Investigation at Vesta and Ceres

Recent collisional jet from a primitive asteroid

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