The Appearance of a “Fresh” Surface on 596 Scheila as a Consequence of the 2010 Impact Event

Dust emission was detected on main-belt asteroid 596 Scheila in December 2010, and attributed to the collision of a few-tens-of-meters projectile surface asteroid. In such impact, ejected material from collided body is expected mainly comes its fresh, unweathered subsurface. Therefore, it that partially or entirely refreshed during 2010 impact. By combining spectra literature our own observations, we show impact event resulted significant slope change near-infrared (0.8 2.5 {\mu}m) spectrum asteroid, moderately red (T-type) before (D-type) after This provides evidence carbonaceous asteroids become less with time due space weathering, agreement predictions derived laboratory experiments primitive Tagish Lake meteorite, which spectrally similar 596. discovery very first telescopic confirmation weathering trend analog and/or anhydrous chondritic porous interplanetary dust particles. Our results also suggest population implanted objects outer solar system much larger than previously estimated main-belt, but many these are hidden below their space-weathered surface.