Icarus 159, 178–182 (2002) doi:10.1006/icar.2002.6913 Discovering New V-Type Asteroids in the Vicinity of 4 Vesta 1 Marcos Florczak CEFET, Departamento de F´ ısica, Curitiba, Brazil and Daniela Lazzaro and Ren´ e Duffard Observat´ orio Nacional, CAA, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil E-mail: lazzaro@on.br Received November 5, 2001; revised May 6, 2002 We present results on the identification of two new V-type aste- roids, 809 Lundia and 956 Elisa. These asteroids are located in the neighborhood of Asteroid 4 Vesta, but they do not belong to Vesta’s dynamical family. Their spectra in the visible wavelength are consistent with the spectra of the Vesta family members (Vestoids) and of other V-type objects in the nearby region too. The possible existence of two spectroscopic groups of V-type asteroids in the Vesta region is discussed. c  2002 Elsevier Science (USA) Key Words: asteroids; asteroids, Vesta; asteroids, composition; spectroscopy; surface composition. 1. INTRODUCTION It has long been recognized that the spectrum of Asteroid 4 Vesta exhibits the 1- and 2-µm pyroxene features, similar to those of the HED meteorites (McCord et al. 1970, McFadden et al. 1977). The uniqueness of this kind of spectrum in the asteroid main belt led to the association of the HED meteorites with 4 Vesta, in spite of the difficulties in identifying the possible mechanisms of transport from 4 Vesta to the Earth. Later on, the identification of a Vesta dynamical family (Williams 1989, Zappal` a et al. 1990), the discovery of near-Earth asteroids having the same spectral signature, and the discovery of a 460-km- diameter crater in 4 Vesta (Binzel et al. 1997) contributed to reinforce the link between 4 Vesta and the HED meteorites. The subsequent identification (Binzel and Xu 1993) of several small asteroids, either members of the Vesta family or close to it, having visible spectra similar to that of 4 Vesta, and the discovery of the transport mechanisms from the Vesta region to near-Earth orbits (Marzari et al. 1996, Migliorini et al. 1997), consolidated this hypothesis (Drake 2001). 1 Based on observations made with the 1.52-m telescope at the European Southern Observatory (La Silla, Chile) under the agreement with the CNPq/ Observat´ orio Nacional. In recent taxonomies, asteroids showing a spectrum similar to that of 4 Vesta have been classified as V-type (Tholen and Barucci 1989, Bus 1999). The name “Vestoids” was initially used by Binzel and Xu (1993) to refer to all the asteroids in the region near 4 Vesta having a V-type spectrum. Recently, it has been found that all the Vestoids have near-infrared spectra consistent with a unique origin (Burbine 2000, Burbine et al. 2001). The exception is Asteroid 2579 Spartacus, which not only has a spectrum very similar to those of V-class objects but also shows features indicating the presence of a significant amount of olivine. This suggest either that 2579 Spartacus contains sample material from the mantle of 4 Vesta or it is not a Vesta fragment at all. The spectroscopic link among the Vestoids, the V-type near- Earth asteroids (NEAs), and the HED meteorites seems to be quite consistent, especially if we take into account that basaltic material is very rare in the asteroid belt. However, some prob- lems still remain open. For example, the cosmic ray exposure time observed in the HED meteorites seems to be incompati- ble with the transport dynamical time of the NEAs (Migliorini et al. 1997). The spectra of all the HED meteorites show a subtle absorption feature, which is observed only on some V-type as- teroids in the Vesta region (Vilas et al. 2000, Hiroi et al. 2001). Finally, the recent identification of a basaltic asteroid, 1459 Magnya, in the outer main belt (Lazzaro et al. 2000), which is not related to the Vesta family, provides another possible source for the V-type NEAs and HED meteorites (Michtchenko et al. 2002). In this paper, we present the recent identification of two new V-type asteroids: 809 Lundia and 956 Elisa. These asteroids are located in the region near Vesta but far away from the limits of the Vesta dynamical family. Actually, one of them is classi- fied as a member of the nearby Flora clan. It is worth recall- ing that another asteroid with a V-type spectrum, 4278 Harvey, has already been discovered among the same clan (Florczak et al. 1998). In view of the increasing number of objects with a 178 0019-1035/02 $35.00 c  2002 Elsevier Science (USA) All rights reserved.