The specific heat of samples from Asteroid (101955) BENNU

Kurzfassung

Specific heat (at constant pressure) cP(T) depends on temperature and the mineralogic composition of a sample. It is important [1, 2] to know for the construction of precise thermophysical models of B-type asteroid Bennu, where often only the composite quantity of thermal inertia Γ is cited. Γ = sqrt(cP k ρ), where ρ is bulk density and k is thermal conductivity. Thus, knowledge of cP(T) of the samples from Bennu is critical for comparing them to thermal inertia values determined from orbit (e.g., [3]). Here we report the results of differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) on a sample of Bennu from 210 K to 450 K. Lowtemperature data (2–300 K) will be presented in detail by [4].