The Astrophysical Journal, 615:L161–L164, 2004 November 10
䉷 2004. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. Printed in U.S.A.

MATURE AND FRESH SURFACES ON THE NEWBORN ASTEROID KARIN
1Takanori Sasaki, Sho Sasaki,1,2 Jun-ichi Watanabe,2 Tomohiko Sekiguchi,2 Fumi Yoshida,2 Hideyo Kawakita,3Tetsuharu Fuse,4 Naruhisa Takato,4 Budi Dermawan,5,6 and Takashi Ito2,7
Received 2004 July 6; accepted 2004 October 4; published 2004 October 14

ABSTRACT
Here we report a near-infrared (J, H, and K bands) spectroscopy of 832 Karin, the brightest asteroid among
the Karin cluster group, which is thought to be the remnants of a collisional breakup only 5.8 million years ago.
The spectroscopic observation was performed by the Subaru telescope with the Cooled Infrared Spectrographand Camera for OHS on 2003 September 14. For different rotational phases of Karin, we derived different spectrasuch as a reddened spectrum like that of an S-type asteroid and an unreddened spectrum like that of ordinarychondrite. Karin could be an impact fragment preserving an old surface and is probably one of the cone-shaped
fragments at the low-velocity impact that formed the Karin cluster group. Our result supports the idea that Stype asteroids are parent bodies of ordinary chondrites.
Subject headings: minor planets, asteroids — solar system: generalal. 2004). Here we have an excellent target. Using numericalintegration of asteroid orbits, Nesvorný et al. (2002) recently
revealed a newborn group of asteroids named the Karin clustergroup, which are thought to be the remnants of a recent breakup
only 5.8 million years ago (Nesvorný et al. 2002). In this study,
we observed the brightest asteroid 832 Karin (diameter of about
19 km and absolute magnitude of 11.18; Nesvorný & Bottke2004) in this group in order to investigate whether the new
asteroid really has a fresh and unreddened surface.

1. INTRODUCTION

Although S-type asteroids are the most common among theinner-part main belt asteroids as well as near-Earth asteroids,
reddened reflectance spectra and derived mineralogy of S-type
asteroids are different from those of ordinary chondrites, themost common meteorites. Space weathering is thought to beable to explain these spectral mismatches between asteroid
types and meteorite classes (Chapman & Salisbury 1973; Wetherill & Chapman 1988; Chapman 1996; Pieters et al. 2000;
Binzel et al. 2003; Burbine et al. 2003; Clark et al. 2003).
Recent asteroid surveys suggest a strong link between S-type
asteroids and ordinary chondrites (Binzel et al. 1996; Burbine& Binzel 2002). Multispectral observation of Ida by the Galileo
spacecraft showed that relatively fresh surfaces such as craterinteriors and ejecta have reflectance like ordinary chondrites(Chapman 1996). Moreover, the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous/Shoemaker mission revealed an ordinary chondrite composition of 433 Eros despite a reddened S-type spectrum(McFadden et al. 2001; Clark et al. 2001; Bell et al. 2002).
The detailed mechanism of space weathering has remained
unsolved until recently, when the laboratory experiments using
high-energy pulse laser irradiation confirmed Hapke’s old hypothesis (Hapke et al. 1975; Hapke 2001) that the reflectancechange forming S-type spectra is caused by the formation of
nanophase iron particles within the vapor-deposited rim aroundregolith particles (Sasaki et al. 2001). The degree of space
weathering, i.e., redness of spectral slope, can be used to discuss
the age of asteroids (Sasaki et al. 2001). And recently, relations
between the color and age of S-type asteroid groups have beenfound through the Sloan Digital Sky Survey project (Jedicke et

2. OBSERVATIONS AND DATA REDUCTIONS

A near-infrared spectroscopic observation of Karin was performed by the 8 m Subaru telescope with the Cooled Infrared
Spectrograph and Camera for OHS (CISCO; Motohara et al.
2002) on 2003 September 14 (UT) (Table 1). In order to obtaina wide-range near-infrared spectrum, grisms named zJ (0.88–
1.40 mm), JH (1.06–1.82 mm), and wK (1.85–2.51 mm) wereused. The slit size was 108  # 0⬙. 8 in our observation, and atypical seeing size at the observation was about 0⬙. 3 in the Kband. The integration time for Karin was 800 s for each grism,
i.e., 2400 s for each setting (zJ ⫹ JH ⫹ wK). We put theasteroid on a slit at two different positions (A and B) to subtract
sky background emissions by the (A-B) operation. The nodding
angle was 20⬙ for our observations. For the cancellation of
telluric absorption features, a reference star (G2 V star HIP3990) was observed just after the Karin observation. For the
cross-check of the cancellation of telluric absorptions, otherreference stars (A0 star SAO 165395 and A2 star SAO 165274)
were observed during the Karin observation. The reference
stars were also observed at the A and B positions.
We used the NOAO IRAF astronomical software package
to reduce near-infrared spectra obtained by CISCO. First of all,dark subtraction and flat-fielding were applied for all frames.
Then OH sky emission lines were used for the wavelength
calibration. Karin’s raw spectra were divided by the spectra ofa reference star to derive the relative reflectance of Karin. Thus
we can get a near-infrared reflectance spectrum of Karin. Finally, relative magnitudes were computed using aperture photometry. We used an aperture radius of about twice the FWHM,
and sky subtraction was performed using a 5–10 pixel wide
annulus around the asteroid or reference stars. Through theseprocedures, we obtained the magnitude of Karin: 13.64 at the
J band, 13.48 at the H band, and 13.40 at the K band. We

1
Department of Earth and Planetary Science, University of Tokyo, 7-3-1
Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan; takanori@eps.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp.
2
National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, 2-21-1 Osawa, Mitaka,
Tokyo 181-8588, Japan.
3
Gunma Astronomical Observatory, 6860-86 Nakayama, Takayama,
Gunma 377-0702, Japan.
4
Subaru Telescope, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, 650 North
A’ohoku Place, Hilo, HI 96720.
5
School of Science, University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033,
Japan.
6
Department of Astronomy, Bandung Institute of Technology, Bandung
40132, Indonesia.
7
Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, 1629 East University Boulevard, Tucson, AZ 85721.

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TABLE 1
Observational Parameters
ObjectUT Time

Total Integrations(s)

Air Mass

Grism

SAO 165395 (A0) . . . . . .
Karin (first set) . . . . . . . . .

7:31
7:57
8:13
8:30
8:46
9:02
9:18
9:43
9:50
9:56
10:45
11:15
11:39
12:09
12:15
12:21
12:35
12:42
12:46

60
750
800
800
800
800
800
80
60
60
800
800
800
80
80
80
96
48
48

1.401–1.410
1.182–1.189
1.172–1.176
1.168–1.169
1.169–1.171
1.175–1.179
1.187–1.195
1.155
1.155–1.156
1.156–1.157
1.391–1.422
1.543–1.588
1.718–1.783
1.590–1.608
1.623–1.642
1.665–1.686
1.228–1.232
1.239–1.241
1.247–1.250

zJ
zJ
JH
wK
zJ
JH
wK
wK
JH
zJ
zJ
JH
wK
zJ
JH
wK
wK
JH
zJ

Karin (second set) . . . . . .
SAO 165395 (A0) . . . . . .
Karin (third set) . . . . . . . .
SAO 165274 (A2) . . . . . .
HIP 3990 (G2 V) . . . . . . .

scaled the relative spectra to be consistent with each other by
this photometry.
3. RESULTS

We observed Karin at 7:57–8:40 UT, 8:46–9:29 UT, and10:45–11:50 UT. The synodic rotational period of Karin is
18.348 hr, which was derived from a light curve obtained by
supporting observations (Yoshida et al. 2004; Fig. 1). In comparison with the light curve, rotational phases of Karin in ourobservation are 0.30–0.34 (red region, the first set), 0.35–0.38(green region, the second set), and 0.45–0.50 (blue region, thethird set). Figure 2 shows the relative reflectance spectra of
Karin. Red, green, and blue spectra in Figure 2 are those of
the first, second, and third observational sets, respectively. The
difference in the air mass at the observations of Karin and thereference star was smaller than 0.1 throughout the first and thesecond sets. Since the range between 1.06 and 1.40 mm wasobserved by both zJ and JH bands, we separated the spectrazJ and JH in Figure 2 for each set of observation. Actually,
we have six sets of spectra in this region. There is an obvious
difference between the top two (green and blue) and the bottom(red) spectra. The near-infrared (0.9–1.4 mm) reflectance slopeof the bottom spectra is twice as steep as that of the top spectra.
We could derive the same difference of spectral slopes between
the first set and the second (or the third) set using other reference stars (SAO 165395 and SAO 165274). In general, major
color changes with rotation are very rarely observed on asteroids; for example, only a little difference in the gradients ofspectra at different rotational phases was observed in Vesta(Gaffey 1997). The present color change of Karin would be
the biggest color change ever observed with the rotational
phase. The range in which the most significant spectral change
was detected was observed by both zJ and JH bands. We confirmed that the spectral change was detected in both bands. In
addition, a gradual change of the spectral slope is also confirmed through zJ (first)–JH (first)–zJ (second)–JH (second)
data (Fig. 2). Moreover, we verified that the SAO 165395 spectra (zJ) were not changed before the first set and after the second
set of Karin observation (Fig. 3). This would remove the possibility that the spectral change was caused by an instrumental
or atmospheric (and hour angle) effect through the first andsecond sets of Karin observations.
The shape of 0.88–2.5 mm in the first set’s spectrum with a

Fig. 1.—Light curve of 832 Karin. Based on data obtained by the 1.8 m
VATT at the Vatican observatory at Mount Graham, Arizona, by the 1 m
Schmidt telescope at the Kiso observatory, Japan, and by the 40 cm telescopeat the Fukuoka University of Education (FEU), Japan. The filled circles, open
circles, triangles, squares, upside-down triangles, diamonds, circled crosses,
crosses, and circled plus signs correspond to the data of August 22 (at FEU),
23 (at FEU), September 3 (at FEU), 4 (at FEU), 5 (at Kiso), 26 (at VATT),
27 (at VATT), 28 (at VATT), and 29 (at VATT), respectively. Total observing
duration is nine nights from 2003 August to September. The rotational periodof this asteroid is 18.348 hr. The amplitude of the light curve is 0.7 mag at
the zero solar phase angle. The zero phase of rotation is at 2004 July 31
0:00 UT. Assuming that Karin is an elongated ellipsoid with poles on the shortaxis and that observation direction is vertical to the pole direction, the axis
ratio of the Karin ellipsoid (long to short) is about 2 from the magnitude
amplitude 0.7. Our observation corresponds to the phase of rotations of red,green, and blue regions. This figure was adopted and modified from Yoshida
et al. (2004).

steep slope at shorter wavelength is consistent with an S-type
object. We identified which S subclass of the classification
scheme (Gaffey et al. 1993; Cloutis et al. 1986) can best describe the Karin spectrum. In this classification, the S class isdivided into seven subclasses. Since the first set’s spectrumof Karin has the peak position of a 1 mm band shorter than
1.0 mm and has an apparent 2 mm band, it is placed among therange of S(III), S(IV), and S(V) classes. Figure 4 shows thenormalized reflectance spectra of Karin (the first set and thelast set) along with those of the S(IV)-type asteroid 584 Semiramis (Bell 2002) and L6 ordinary chondrite Paranaiba (Pieters 2000). The first set’s spectrum of Karin matches well the
spectrum of the S(IV) class asteroid. In contrast, the last set’s
spectrum (blue) of Karin, which has a relatively gentle slope
at the wavelength shorter than 1.6 mm, matches (within noiseof our spectrum) a typical normalized spectrum of an L6 ordinary chondrite. It is also close to the normalized spectra ofsome Q-type asteroids. The first set seems to be the reddened
spectrum of the last set by space weathering. Laboratory simulations of space weathering also showed relatively intense
reddening at wavelengths shorter than 1.6 mm (Sasaki et al.
2001; Yamada et al. 1999).
4. OBSERVATIONS AT VISIBLE WAVELENGTH

In the same season but on different nights (2003 September
26–29), Yoshida et al. (2004) performed a multispectral (B, V,

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SURFACES ON ASTEROID KARIN

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Fig. 3.—Ratio of two spectra of the reference star SAO 165395; zJ spectrum
observed before the first set of Karin over that after the second set. The
difference of absolute value between these spectra just reflects the differenceof air mass and the difference of exposure time for the frame (10 s for theformer set and 5 s for the latter set).

Fig. 2.—Relative spectra of 832 Karin. Bottom: Spectrum relative to thefirst set of the night; middle: that relative to the second set; top: that relative
to the last set. Spectral data are smoothed by a running average of 5 pixels,
and top and bottom spectra are vertically shifted by 0.2 for clarity. In ourobservation, the range between 1.06 and 1.40 mm was observed by both zJ
and JH bands. The spectra zJ and JH for each set of observations are separated.
Actually, we show six sets of spectra in this figure.

R, and I bands) Karin observation using the Mount Graham
1.8 m telescope at the Vatican observatory. Their visible observations of Karin also suggested that the surface at an earlier
rotational phase (!0.5) is weathered compared with that at latter
phases (10.5; Fig. 5). Their results are consistent with ourobservation. Especially in Figure 5, the high V ⫺ I magnitude(thus darker at V) at the rotational phase of 0.2 can be explainedby a relatively matured (dark and red) visible spectrum. Moreover, a gradual increase in B ⫺ V magnitude at a phase lessthan 0.5 is compatible with the change of weathering degree:laboratory simulation of space weathering suggested thatweathered reflectance has a smaller B ⫺ V than unweatheredreflectance (Sasaki et al. 2001). Changes of relative magnitudes
from our observation (J ⫺ H and J ⫺ K ) are also shown in
Figure 5. Larger J ⫺ H and J ⫺ K at phase 0.3 (than those atlater phase) correspond to weathered and reddened spectra.
Thus, the spectral changes according to the rotational phase
due to space weathering were detected in both the visible andthe infrared observations.

we can conclude that the differences of Karin’s spectra would
reflect the difference of the degree of space weathering. At the
impact fragmentation forming the Karin cluster group, Karin,
which was one of the large fragments, could keep the weatheredoriginal surface of the parent body, although we cannot eliminate the possibility that Karin could be the fragment of adifferentiated parent body and thus would have variable surface
compositions. The mature and fresh surfaces’ spectra in one
body strongly stand up for the idea that S-type asteroids areparent bodies of ordinary chondrites (Chapman 1996). The presence of fresh surface on Karin is evidence that the space weathering should not proceed in a duration as short as 5.8 million
years.
Let us reflect on the spectral change of Karin according torotational phase. Around the rotational phase of 0.35, which isthe boundary between the first and second sets, a rapid shift
in the degree of space weathering is observed. As the cross

5. DISCUSSIONS

Our result indicates that Karin’s surface is inhomogeneousfor each rotational phase, which reflects the difference of surface composition or the degree of space weathering between
the first and other sets. In the former case, Karin’s parent bodywas partially differentiated, while in the latter case, Karin has
fresh and mature surfaces, and we have observed these two
faces in one night. However, the aforementioned spectral similarity between the first set’s spectrum of Karin and the S-type
asteroid is in favor of the latter space weathering idea. Hence,

Fig. 4.—Reflectance spectra of 832 Karin (first set: red circles; last set:blue circles) along with the spectra of S(IV)-type asteroid 584 Semiramis(violet squares) and L6 ordinary chondrite Paranaiba (green diamonds) normalized to the unity at 1.0 mm. The data points corresponding to the meanvalues for every 10 pixels are plotted with their error bars of standard deviation.
The data are removed in the wavelength range where the telluric absorptions
were strong and the error bars are large. The data for asteroid Semiramis arefrom the SBN Data Set 52 Color Catalog, and the data for chondrite Paranaiba
are from the RELAB Public Spectroscopy Database.

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Fig. 5.—Color variation on Karin’s surface. The filled circles, open circles,
squares, triangles, and upside-down triangles denote the B ⫺ V , V ⫺ R, V ⫺ I,
J ⫺ H, and J ⫺ K colors, respectively. Data at visible wavelength (B, V, R, and I
bands) are taken over four nights between 2003 September 26 and 29 using VATT,
which is the 1.8 m telescope at the Vatican observatory (Mount Graham, Arizona).
Filter characteristics at VATT are as follows: B band: center of the wavelength(CWL) p 0.435932 mm, FWHM p 0.102679 mm; V band: CWL p 0.539484
mm, FWHM p 0.087738 mm; R band: CWL p 0.633814 mm, FWHM p
0.118635 mm; and I band: CWL p 0.810487 mm, FWHM p 0.162378 mm.
Data at the infrared wavelength (J, H, and K bands) are from our observation.
These magnitude data were transformed from the spectral data at the J band
(1.12 mm), H band (1.64 mm), and K band (2.13 mm). This figure was adopted
and modified from Yoshida et al. (2004).

section area of Karin increases (Karin being brighter), the matured redder surface is replaced by an immature fresh surface.
More reddened spectra could be observed at a phase earlier
than 0.3, and the spectrum of our first set of Karin could beaveraged data of the unreddened spectrum and the much more
reddened spectrum. The light curve in Figure 1 has doubleVol. 615

peaks of magnitude (where the phases are around 0.2 and 0.7,
respectively), which have too big a luminous intensity amplitude to be explained by albedo variation. The double peaks
may indicate that Karin has an elongated-shaped body, and asmall difference between the magnitudes at 0.2 and 0.7 could
tentatively imply that the surface around 0.2 is mature anddarkened by space weathering while the surface around 0.7 isfresh, although the shape difference might be more responsible
for this peak height difference.
We would like to propose as one speculative possibility thatthe change of the space weathering degree on Karin’s surface
could be explained if Karin were one of the cone-shaped fragments at low-velocity impact forming the Karin family. Impact
disruption experiments suggest that in the low-velocity impact
regime (v ≤ 1 km s⫺1), the target is shattered into cone-shaped
fragments pointing toward the impact point (Fujiwara et al.
1989). Indeed, the impact that formed the Karin group could
be low-velocity because the relative velocity between celestialbodies would be low in the main asteroid belt. In this case, thebase of the cone is mature surface–darkened by space weathering, and it would be observed at a rotational phase of 0.2.
We thank M. Yuasa for the comments on celestial mechanics
on the newborn asteroid family. We thank S. Sawabe, M. Haji,
R. Saito, M. Hirai, and Y. Sato for visible observation data of
Karin to derive the light curve, and S. Hasegawa for usefulsuggestions about S-type asteroids’ spectra. F. Y. and T. I. thankM. Nelson, G. Consolmagno, S. Tegler, and T. Gehrels for theobserving use of the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope(VATT). We also thank J. F. Bell for asteroid Semiramis data
and C. M. Pieters for meteorite Paranaiba data. We thank
C. R. Chapman for his constructive comments, which led us
to greatly improve this Letter. We thank the anonymous reviewer for constructive reviews.

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