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What we know about Families of Asteroids

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 August 2015

V. Zappala’
V. Zappala’*
Affiliation:
Astronomical Observatory of Torino, 1-10025 Pino Torinese, Italy

Abstract

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Asteroid families are considered for the most to represent fragments of collisional breakup of precursor bodies. If true, this offers the unique possibility to examine the interiors of large bodies and to study the processes of collision on a scale much larger than can be done in laboratory. Indeed, the general features of the mass distributions and of the ejection velocities of the family members can be interpreted in terms of collisional disruption of a parent body followed by self-gravitational reaccumulation on the largest remnant. However, several problems remain open: a) the degree of fragmentation in real families is generally lower than that observed for experimental targets; b) the relative velocities computed including also proper eccentricity and inclination differences are higher by about a factor 4 than those derived from semiaxes differences only; c) only very few of the presently proposed families have distributions of inferred mineralogies consistent with cosmochemistry. Further studies are needed, including better proper elements computation, classification methods, and new investigations on the physics of hypervelocity impacts.

Type
Joint Discussions
Information
Highlights of Astronomy , Volume 8: Highlights of Astronomy. As presented at the XXth General Assembly of the IAU, 1988 , 1989 , pp. 273 - 279
Copyright
Copyright © Kluwer 1989

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