A Spectrophotometric Investigation of the Evolutionary History of the Inner Asteroid Belt

Gaffey博士的这项研究的目的是通过研究：(A)内带小行星的进化史；(B)影响这些天体和陨石母体的早期后吸积加热事件的性质；(C)内带的碰撞演化；(D)小型行星天体的岩浆分化的本质；以及(E)早期内太阳系中的小行星种群的性质，它们聚集在一起形成了大型类地行星。小行星和陨石是太阳系内部唯一的遗迹，在太阳系形成期间和刚刚形成之后。小行星提供了早期内太阳系的条件和过程的“地图”，而陨石则提供了这一时期发生的事件的“日历”。地面望远镜观测可以用来确定这些小行星的表面矿物学。矿物成分记录了该小行星的形成条件，包括其热演化、变质作用或岩浆分异作用以及碰撞历史。加菲博士将得出单个小行星的历史，以研究原始太阳星云的成分变化、小行星带内的热过程和碰撞过程的模式、太阳的早期演化，以及从类似的小行星群聚集而来的早期地球的性质。

The goals of this research by Dr. Gaffey are to improve our understanding of inner Solar System planetesimals by investigating: (a) the evolutionary history of the inner belt asteroids; (b) the nature of the early post-accretionary heating event which effected these bodies as well as the meteorite parent bodies; (c) the collisional evolution of the inner belt; (d) the nature of magmatic differentiation in small planetary objects; and (e) the nature of the planetesimal population in the early inner Solar System which accreted to form the large terrestrial planets. The asteroids and the meteorites are the sole inner Solar System remnants of the period during and just after the formation of the Solar System. Asteroids provide a "map" of the conditions and processes in the early inner Solar System while the meteorites provide a "calendar" of the events occurring during this period. Earth-based telescopic observations can be used to determine the surface mineralogies of these minor planets. The mineralogical composition records the conditions of formation of that asteroid including its thermal evolution, metamorphism or magmatic differentiation, and collisional history. Dr. Gaffey will derive histories of individual asteroids to investigate the compositional variations of the original solar nebula, the pattern of thermal and collisional processes within the asteroid belt, the early evolution of the Sun, and the nature of the early Earth which accreted from a similar population of planetesimals.