Speaking of parent bodies, I've seen references to "the" H parent body. Likewise the L and LL parent bodies.
David Weir writes
[T]he H parent body suffered two distinct collisional events [...] The H chondrites are a good spectrographic match with the S(IV)-type asteroids 6 Hebe, 3 Juno, and 7 Iris.
For H, L, and LL chondrites, what's the evidence that each group has a single parent body? Or is "the H parent body" shorthand for "the collection of bodies that are the sources for H chondrites"?
For an HED, a Vestoid could be the source body, which presumably has 4 Vesta as its parent. In such a case, 4 Vesta would be the grandparent body -- the terminal source. It's odd reflectance spectra is (I think) strong evidence for the singular (grand)parent body conclusion in this case. Call 4 Vesta *the* HED "primordial" parent body -- or something like that.
In contrast, why rule out multiple primoridial H parent bodies, each with similar compositions due to, say, origin in the same, large nebular resevoir? Are H/L transitionals evidence agaist a singular H parent body?
Seems like the phrase "H parent bodies" better reflects current knowledge than the phrase "the H parent body". No?
--Jamie Stephens
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