Mineralogy of V-type asteroids as a constraining tool of their past history

In the past few years, the genetic relationship between (4) Vesta, Vestoids and HED meteorites was reinforced (Drake, 2001, Meteorit. Planet. Sci. 36 (4), 501–513). It is believed that Vestoids and HED meteorites were originated from a collision suffered by (4) Vesta, during the early stages of the Solar System. Due to the effects of dynamical resonances, several fragments of this collision were ejected into near-Earth orbits and some of them have originated the so-called HED meteorites. We aim to infer about the hypothetical collision suffered by (4) Vesta and its connection to the genetic relationship between V-type asteroids and HED meteorites. For this purpose, reflectance spectra of a set of 11 V-type asteroids and 55 HED meteorites were obtained, respectively, from the publically available MIT-UH-IRTF Joint Campaign for NEO Reconaissance and RELAB database.