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Nature 446, 273-274 (15 March 2007) | doi:10.1038/446273a; Published online 14 March 2007
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Solar system: Portrait of a suburban family
Alessandro Morbidelli1
Abstract
The first 'collisional family' has been spotted among objects in the Kuiper belt, which lies on the outskirts of the Solar System. The identification could provide useful constraints on the outer Solar System's history.
Collisional families — clusters of Solar System bodies formed when their parent body breaks up on being hit by a projectile — are familiar to astronomers. About 35 of them are known in the asteroid belt1, the ring of small 'planetesimal' bodies confined between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
- Alessandro Morbidelli is at the Laboratoire Cassiopée, Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur, BP 4229, 06304 Nice Cedex 4, France.
Email: morby@obs-nice.fr
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