Remnants of a lost Planetesimal: Searching for the Angrite parent body

It is hypothesized that the Solar System was once populated by Moon to Mars-sized planetary embryos, however, resulting debris from their disruptions is not easily discernible in the modern-day Solar System. Angrites are among the oldest differentiated materials in our Solar System, recording prolonged magmatism, and their parent body is expected to have been Moon to Mars-sized. Even so, no parent body in the modern-day Solar System has been identified. Our UV–Vis-NIR spectra of ten angrites, compared with 712 asteroids, reveal multiple candidates with spectral similarities through curve matching and band-structure analysis. Asteroid (246) Asporina provides the best analog for the angrite meteorites, potentially representing a fragment of a long-lost Moon to Mars-sized body that once resided in the inner Solar System, which was subsequently incorporated into the growing terrestrial planets. •Spectral investigation of the quenched, plutonic and intermediate angrites.•Asteroid (246) Asporina spectrally matches the intermediate angrite, NWA 10463.•This asteroid may therefore represent a fragment of a first-generation planetesimal.