BASALTIC ASTEROIDS: A NEW LOOK ON THE DIFFERENTIATION PROCESS IN THE MAIN BELT

Although asteroid (4) Vesta is the only large object in the Main Belt which shows an almost intact basaltic crust, an increasingly large number of small asteroids with a similar surface composition have been discovered in the last years. All these objects, classified as V-type in the diverse taxonomies, have a surface composition similar to that of the Howardites, Eucrites, and Diogenites meteorites, known as HED. In this paper we review the new findings on basaltic asteroids, and on the HED meteorites, and discuss how these reinforce the idea that differentiation was quite common in the Main Belt early stages of formation, in contrast to the classical scenario which considers the formation of just one large differentiated body, (4) Vesta.