Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

New Infrared Spectral Data For 27 Asteroids: An Investigation Of Meteorite-Asteroid Relationships By Using The Modified Gaussian Model, Katherine Marie Gietzen

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Asteroids provide unique insights into the origin and early history of the solar system. Since asteroids are considered to be fairly pristine, studying them provides opportunities to learn more about the primordial solar system, its materials, processes and history. Since the discovery in 1801 of the first asteroid, Ceres, during the era when everyone was searching for the "missing planet", astronomers have been trying to understand what they are, where they came from, why they exist and what they can tell us about how our solar system formed and evolved.

Within the asteroid population are a number of sub-populations, the …