On the Size Distribution of Asteroid Families: The Role of Geometry

Tanga, P.; Cellino, A.; Michel, Patrick; Zappalà, V.; Paolicchi, Paolo; Dell’Oro, A.

doi:10.1006/icar.1999.6148

Cited by 130 publications

(184 citation statements)

References 29 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

168

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This choice of the cutoff size does affect the result for q > 4 because most of the mass is in the smallest bodies. However, it is consistent with the location of the turnover point in the family size distribution found by Tanga et al (1999) using a purely geometric model for the breakup of 100 km diameter bodies with a M lr /M parent 0.5, as we are using here. This represents the current best constraint on family size distributions.…”

Section: Methodssupporting

confidence: 90%

Identifying Collisional Families in the Kuiper Belt

Marcus

Ragozzine

Murray-Clay

et al. 2011

ApJ

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The identification and characterization of numerous collisional families-clusters of bodies with a common collisional origin-in the asteroid belt has added greatly to the understanding of asteroid belt formation and evolution. More recent study has also led to an appreciation of physical processes that had previously been neglected (e.g., the Yarkovsky effect). Collisions have certainly played an important role in the evolution of the Kuiper Belt as well, though only one collisional family has been identified in that region to date, around the dwarf planet Haumea. In this paper, we combine insights into collisional families from numerical simulations with the current observational constraints on the dynamical structure of the Kuiper Belt to investigate the ideal sizes and locations for identifying collisional families. We find that larger progenitors (r ∼ 500 km) result in more easily identifiable families, given the difficulty in identifying fragments of smaller progenitors in magnitude-limited surveys, despite their larger spread and less frequent occurrence. However, even these families do not stand out well from the background. Identifying families as statistical overdensities is much easier than characterizing families by distinguishing individual members from interlopers. Such identification seems promising, provided the background population is well known. In either case, families will also be much easier to study where the background population is small, i.e., at high inclinations. Overall, our results indicate that entirely different techniques for identifying families will be needed for the Kuiper Belt, and we provide some suggestions.

show abstract

Section: Methodssupporting

confidence: 90%

Identifying Collisional Families in the Kuiper Belt

Marcus

Ragozzine

Murray-Clay

et al. 2011

ApJ

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Given the environmental and physical conditions discussed above that are suspected of giving rise to cometary activity in 133P, in the search for objects exhibiting similar activity, the following target categories were considered: -Themis family asteroids: The Themis family is likely the result of the breakup of a parent asteroid about 400 km in diameter ∼2.5 Gyr ago (Marzari et al 1995;Tanga et al 1999;Nesvorný et al 2003) and is one of the largest and most statistically robust asteroid families known (e.g., Carusi & Valsecchi 1982;Zappalà et al 1990). Given their origin from a common parent, Themis family members are thought to be compositionally homogeneous, as corroborated by observational studies showing that the family is dominated by primitive C-type asteroids that also exhibit signs of aqueous alteration (Bell 1989;Florczak et al 1999;Ivezić et al 2002;Mothé-Diniz et al 2005).…”

Section: Survey Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Hawaii trails project: comet-hunting in the main asteroid belt

Hsieh

2009

A&A

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Context. The mysterious solar system object 133P/(7968) Elst-Pizarro is dynamically asteroidal, yet displays recurrent comet-like dust emission. Two scenarios were hypothesized to explain this unusual behavior: 1) 133P is a classical comet from the outer solar system that has evolved onto a main-belt orbit or 2) 133P is a dynamically ordinary main-belt asteroid on which subsurface ice has recently been exposed. If 1) is correct, the expected rarity of a dynamical transition onto an asteroidal orbit implies that 133P could be alone in the main belt. In contrast, if 2) is correct, other icy main-belt objects should exist and could also exhibit cometary activity. Aims. Believing 133P to be a dynamically ordinary, yet icy main-belt asteroid, I set out to test the primary prediction of the hypothesis: that 133P-like objects should be common and could be found by an appropriately designed observational survey. Methods. I conducted just such a survey -the Hawaii Trails Project -of selected main-belt asteroids in a search for objects displaying cometary activity. Optical observations were made of targets selected from among the Themis, Koronis, and Veritas asteroid families, the Karin asteroid cluster, and low-inclination, kilometer-scale outer-belt asteroids, using the Lulin 1.0 m, small and moderate aperture research telescope system (SMARTS) 1.0 m, University of Hawaii 2.2 m, southern astrophysical research (SOAR) 4.1 m, Gemini North 8.1 m, Subaru 8.2 m, and Keck I 10 m telescopes. Results. I made 657 observations of 599 asteroids, discovering one active object now known as 176P/LINEAR, leading to the identification of the new cometary class of main-belt comets (MBCs). These results suggest that there could be ∼100 currently active MBCs among low-inclination, kilometer-scale outer-belt asteroids. Physically and statistically, MBC activity is consistent with initiation by meter-sized impactors. The estimated rate of impacts and sizes of resulting active sites, however, imply that 133P-sized bodies should become significantly devolatilized over Gyr timescales, suggesting that 133P, and possibly the other MBCs as well, could be secondary, or even multigenerational, fragments from recent breakup events.

show abstract

“…Note that numerical hydrocode results and observations of asteroid families indicate that FSDs produced by cratering or disruption events can be very different from one another, with factors like impact energy, parent body size, impact angle, etc. playing critical roles in the outcome (e.g., Tanga et al 1999;Michel 2001;2003;Durda et al 2004). For this reason, we decided to create a "toy" FSD for each body that was purposely exaggerated to test the extremes of the problem (and one that is inconsistent with the FSDs described previously).…”

Section: The Evolution Of Asteroid Families and Stony Meteoroidsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The origin and evolution of stony meteorites

et al. 2004

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. The origin of stony meteorites landing on Earth today is directly linked to the history of the main belt, which evolved both through collisional evolution and dynamical evolution/depletion. In this paper, we focus our attention on the main belt dynamical evolution scenario discussed in Petit et al. (2001). According to Petit et al., during the planet formation epoch, the primordial main belt contained several Earth masses of material, enough to allow the asteroids to accrete on relatively short timescales.After a few My, the accretion of planetary embryos in the main belt zone dynamically stirred the remaining planetesimals to high enough velocities to initiate fragmentation. After a short interval, perhaps as long as 10 My, the primordial main belt was dynamically depleted of > 99% of its material via the combined perturbations of the planetary embryos and a newly-formed Jupiter. The small percentage of objects that survived in the main belt zone became the asteroid belt. It has been shown that the wavy-shaped size-frequency distribution of the main belt is a "fossil" left over from this violent period .Using a collisional/dynamical model of this scenario, we tracked the evolution of stony meteoroids produced by catastrophic disruption events over the last several Gy. We show that most stony meteoroids are a byproduct of a collisional cascade derived from large and ancient asteroid families or smaller, more recent breakup events. The meteoroids are then delivered to Earth by drifting in semimajor axis via Yarkovsky thermal drag forces until they reach a resonance powerful enough to place them on an Earth-crossing orbit.

show abstract

On the Size Distribution of Asteroid Families: The Role of Geometry

Cited by 130 publications

References 29 publications

Identifying Collisional Families in the Kuiper Belt

Identifying Collisional Families in the Kuiper Belt

The Hawaii trails project: comet-hunting in the main asteroid belt

The origin and evolution of stony meteorites

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About