FORNASIER , Sonia

The article presents the concept of a new spectrograph designed to observe asteroids. The main objective of this instrument is the coverage in one shot of the wavelengths interval of the visible and near-infrared, between 0.5 and 1.6 μm. The spectrograph is designed to observe in low resolution and to characterize the minerals at the surface of...

Aims: We carried out a spectroscopic survey in order to investigate the composition of 64 asteroids of the inner main belt, which are leftovers of the original planetesimals of our Solar System (we call them inner main belt planetesimals or IMBPs). Following published methods, we identified IMBPs in the inverse size versus semimajor axis (?)...

We analyse here a wide sample of carbonaceous chondrites from historic falls (e.g. Allende, Cold Bokkeveld, Kainsaz, Leoville, Murchison, Murray, Orgueil and Tagish Lake) and from NASA Antarctic collection.With the analysis of these meteorites we want to get new clues on the role of aqueous alteration in promoting the reflectance spectra...

Trans-Neptunian objects (TNO) represent the leftovers of the formation of the Solar System. Their physical properties provide constraints to the models of formation and evolution of the various dynamical classes of objects in the outer Solar System. Based on a sample of 19 classical TNOs we determine radiometric sizes, geometric albedos and...