Shedding light on the darkest Solar System objects

Séminaire IPAG de Pierre Beck (IPAG), jeudi 12 décembre 2019 à 11h00, IPAG seminar room

Comets and most asteroids are extremely dark objets. They typically reflect only a few percent of the incoming light.
I will discuss the nature of dark Solar System small bodies based on ground-based observations, in situ observation (i.e. VIRTIS / ROSETTA) and laboratory measurements.
I will discuss in particular the case of C-type near-Earth asteroids, which are being targetted by two sample-return missions and how they might (or not) be representative of the main-belt population.
Finally, I will present the case of D-type asteroids, and how they relate to comets and whether we have in hand samples from this population.