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.