Main-Belt Source Regions for Potentially Hazardous Near-Earth Asteroids and Sample Return Targets

Spectroscopic and taxonomic information is now available for more than 1000 near-Earth objects (NEOs), thanks in large measure to the NASA IRTF long-term NEO spectral reconnaissance program we call the MIT-Hawaii Near-Earth Object Spectroscopic Survey (MITHNEOS) [1]. This sample comprises about 10% of the total NEO population, including Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs), and finds that all defined main-belt asteroid classes are also present within the near-Earth population. Using this largest available NEO dataset and dynamic source region models (such as [2]) we will present new results on the provenance of PHAs, source regions for each of the asteroid taxonomic classes, and pinpoint sources for major meteorite classes such as H, L, and LL ordinary chondrites. In finding these correlations, we find that source region signatures for B-, C-, and Cg-type NEOs include Jupiter family comets, further adding interest to the sampling of these classes by impending missions [3, 4]. This work is supported by the National Science Foundation Grant 0907766 and NASA Grant NNX10AG27G.[1] Tokunaga, A. et al. (2006) BAAS 38, 59.07. [2] Bottke, W.F. et al. (2002), Icarus 156, 399. [3] Lauretta, D. S. et al. (2015), MAPS 50, 834. [4] Abe, M. et al. (2012) 39th COSPAR, Abstract H0.2-7-12.