Pallas family

The Pallas family (adj. Palladian; FIN: 801) is a small asteroid family of B-type asteroids at very high inclinations in the intermediate asteroid belt.[1][2] The family was identified by Kiyotsugu Hirayama in 1928.

The namesake of the family is 2 Pallas, an extremely large asteroid with a mean diameter of about 512 km.[3] The remaining Palladian asteroids are far smaller; the largest is 5222 Ioffe with an estimated diameter of 22 km. This, along with the preponderance of the otherwise rare B spectral type among its members, indicates that this is likely a cratering family composed of ejecta from impacts on Pallas.

Another suspected Palladian is 3200 Phaethon, the parent body of the Geminid meteor shower.[4]

Location and structure of the Pallas family.

From the diagram, their proper orbital elements lie in the approximate ranges

ap ep ip
min 2.71 AU 0.25 32°
max 2.79 AU 0.31 34°

At the present epoch, the range of osculating orbital elements of the members (by comparison to the MPCORB database [1]) is about

a e i
min 2.71 AU 0.13 30°
max 2.79 AU 0.37 38°

References

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  1. ^ Cellino, A.; Bus, S. J.; Doressoundiram, A.; Lazzaro, D. (March 2002). "Spectroscopic Properties of Asteroid Families". Asteroids III: 633–643. Bibcode:2002aste.book..633C. Retrieved 14 December 2018. (see Table on p.636)
  2. ^ Nesvorný, D.; Broz, M.; Carruba, V. (December 2014). "Identification and Dynamical Properties of Asteroid Families". Asteroids IV. pp. 297–321. arXiv:1502.01628. Bibcode:2015aste.book..297N. doi:10.2458/azu_uapress_9780816532131-ch016. ISBN 9780816532131.
  3. ^ Carry, Benoît; Dumas, Christophe; Kaasalainen, Mikko; Berthier, Jérôme; Merline, William J.; Erard, Stéphane; et al. (February 2010). "Physical properties of (2) Pallas". Icarus. 205 (2): 460–472. arXiv:0912.3626. Bibcode:2010Icar..205..460C. doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2009.08.007.
  4. ^ Jaggard, Victoria (12 October 2010). "Exploding Clays Drive Geminids Sky Show?". National Geographic. Retrieved 14 December 2018.