(16) Psyche images Virtual Observatory Resource

Authors
  1. Viikinkoski M.
  2. Vernazza P.
  3. Hanus J.
  4. Le Coroller H.
  5. Tazhenova K.,Carry B.
  6. Marsset M.
  7. Drouard A.
  8. Marchis F.
  9. Fetick R.
  10. Fusco T.,Durech J.
  11. Birlan M.
  12. Berthier J.
  13. Bartczak P.
  14. Dumas C.
  15. Castillo-Rogez J.,Cipriani F.
  16. Colas F.
  17. Ferrais M.
  18. Grice J.
  19. Jehin E.
  20. Jorda L.,Kaasalainen M.
  21. Kryszczynska A.
  22. Lamy P.
  23. Marciniak A.
  24. Michalowski T.,Michel P.
  25. Pajuelo M.
  26. Podlewska-Gaca E.
  27. Santana-Ros T.
  28. Tanga P.,Vachier F.
  29. Vigan A.
  30. Warner B.
  31. Witasse O.
  32. Yang B.
  33. Published by
    CDS
Abstract

Asteroid (16) Psyche is the target of the NASA Psyche mission. It is considered one of the few main-belt bodies that could be an exposed proto-planetary metallic core and that would thus be related to iron meteorites. Such an association is however challenged by both its near- and mid-infrared spectral properties and the reported estimates of its density. Here, we aim to refine the density of (16) Psyche to set further constraints on its bulk composition and determine its potential meteoritic analog. We observed (16) Psyche with ESO VLT/SPHERE/ZIMPOL as part of our large program (ID 199.C-0074). We used the high angular resolution of these observations to refine Psyche's three-dimensional (3D) shape model and subsequently its density when combined with the most recent mass estimates. In addition, we searched for potential companions around the asteroid. We derived a bulk density of 3.99+/-0.26g/cm^3^ for Psyche. While such density is incompatible at the 3-sigma level with any iron meteorites (~7.8g/cm^3^), it appears fully consistent with that of stony-iron meteorites such as mesosiderites (density ~4.25g/cm^3^). In addition, we found no satellite in our images and set an upper limit on the diameter of any non-detected satellite of 1460+/-200m at 150km from Psyche (0.2%xR_Hill_, the Hill radius) and 800+/-200m at 2000km (3%xRHill). Considering that the visible and near-infrared spectral properties of mesosiderites are similar to those of Psyche, there is merit to a long-published initial hypothesis that Psyche could be a plausible candidate parent body for mesosiderites.

Keywords
  1. asteroids
  2. solar-system
  3. galaxy-classification-systems
Bibliographic source Bibcode
2018A&A...619L...3V
See also HTML
https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/A+A/619/L3
IVOA Identifier IVOID
ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/619/L3
Document Object Identifer DOI
doi:10.26093/cds/vizier.36199003

Access

Web browser access HTML
http://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/A+A/619/L3
https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/A+A/619/L3
http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/A+A/619/L3
IVOA Table Access TAP
http://tapvizier.cds.unistra.fr/TAPVizieR/tap
Run SQL-like queries with TAP-enabled clients (e.g., TOPCAT).
IVOA Cone Search SCS
For use with a cone search client (e.g., TOPCAT).
http://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/conesearch/J/A+A/619/L3/list?
https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/conesearch/J/A+A/619/L3/list?
http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/conesearch/J/A+A/619/L3/list?

History

2018-11-12T09:55:01Z
Resource record created
2018-11-12T09:55:01Z
Created
2020-01-17T10:42:37Z
Updated

Contact

Name
CDS support team
Postal Address
CDS, Observatoire de Strasbourg, 11 rue de l'Universite, F-67000 Strasbourg, France
E-Mail
cds-question@unistra.fr