Vesta and the HED meteorites: Mid-infrared modeling of minerals and their abundances

Abstract

We demonstrate that the use of an established spectral deconvolution algorithm with mid-infrared spectral libraries of mineral separates of varying grain sizes is capable of identifying the known mineral compositions and abundances of a selection of howardite, eucrite, and diogenite (HED) meteorite samples. In addition, we apply the same technique to mid-infrared spectral emissivity measurements of Vesta that have been obtained from Cornell's Mid-Infrared Asteroid Spectroscopy (MIDAS) Survey and the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO). Each Vesta measurement was made over a different range of longitudes. Our spectral deconvolution results to the Vesta spectra corroborate that Vesta's surface is howardite or eucrite-like in composition and heterogeneous across its surface. The spectral fits produced by the linear deconvolution algorithm yields good results for the HED samples of known composition, thus giving us a high degree of confidence that our results for Vesta are valid. © The Meteroitical Society, 2009.