The study - published in the journal Nature Astronomy - found that small fragments of material from
C-type asteroids are too fragile to survive entry into the Earth's atmosphere, explaining why meteorites of this type are rarely discovered here.
Named for the son of its discoverer, Jean-Jacques is an M-type asteroid, so called because it and other members of its class have a high metallic content (
C-type asteroids are carbonaceous, S-type silaceous).
About 1 percent of these ice-infused boulders, known as
C-type asteroids, were dropped into the outer regions of the asteroid belt.
The mission of Hayabusa2 is to explore one of the
C-type asteroids called 1999 JU3 in the universe, retrieve materials and bring them to Earth, said JAXA in a statement.
C-type asteroids are especially useful in this respect as they show a fairly featureless spectrum of uniform reflectance vs.
Moreover,
c-type asteroids could be resources for future space exploration.
The majority belong to another, very important class: the carbonaceous
C-type asteroids.
* Spectral measurements strengthened the possibility that so-called
C-type asteroids may be related to a class of meteorites called carbonaceous chondrites, suggesting that samples of such meteorites may be the first asteroid pieces found on Earth (136: 334).
C-type asteroids are the most common type of asteroid, dark gray, and often seen in the main asteroid belt's outer regions.
Corrections were calculated using the (B-V) values shown in parentheses typical of
C-type asteroids (0.7), S-type (0.9), and blue (0.2), red (1.0) and G-type stars (0.6).