A group of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, led by the planetologist Richard Binzel, announced that she finally solved the mystery of why the surface of asteroids is usually redder than meteorites. Research of this interesting feature took astronomers for seven years, but now they are ready to give a final answer: Mars is to blame for everything.
Meteorites are usually considered fragments of larger space objects that once split into pieces. They are usually darker than asteroids. And this fact of the difference between the two classes of these objects has always been the subject of scientific disputes.
Scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say that three years ago the gravitational forces of our planet became responsible for the darkening of asteroids flying past it, but only those asteroids that were in the inner part of our solar system.
Most of the cosmic stones, which recently flew past Earth and Mars, began their journey from the inner asteroid belt in the solar system, whose boundary lies between Mars and Jupiter. Being in this area, space objects are exposed to the strongest influence of the radiation background of the Sun, which makes their surface color more red.
When objects finally reach the inside of our system and fly past the Earth, red particles are attracted by the gravity of our planet, exposing darker areas and spots on space objects. A team of scientists led by Richard Binzel discovered that a completely similar effect occurs exactly at the moment when the stones fly past Mars. However, in this case, Binzel indicates that for the occurrence of this effect, the asteroids must fly closer to Mars than in the case of the Earth.
“We do not believe that the Earth is the only mechanism for launching such an effect. There are other things in the solar system that ultimately change the appearance of asteroids, ”says Francesca DiMeo, a doctoral candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
As part of the study, a group of scientists attracted former research associate of the institute Matthew Lockhart, who helped add some details to a scientific article on this discovery published in the scientific journal Icarus.
“Mars is located to the right of the asteroid belt, and in this case it has more opportunities to change the appearance of the asteroids,” adds Binzel.
The article is based on materials .
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