Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

The common origin of family and non-family asteroids

Nature Astronomy volume 2, pages 549–554 (2018)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

All asteroids are currently classified as either family, originating from the disruption of known bodies1, or non-family. An outstanding question is the origin of these non-family asteroids. Were they formed individually, or as members of known families but with chaotically evolving orbits, or are they members of old ghost families, that is, asteroids with a common parent body but with orbits that no longer cluster in orbital element space? Here, we show that the sizes of the non-family asteroids in the inner belt are correlated with their orbital eccentricities and anticorrelated with their inclinations, suggesting that both non-family and family asteroids originate from a small number of large primordial planetesimals. We estimate that ~85% of the asteroids in the inner main belt originate from the Flora, Vesta, Nysa, Polana and Eulalia families, with the remaining ~15% originating from either the same families or, more likely, a few ghost families. These new results imply that we must seek explanations for the differing characteristics of the various meteorite groups in the evolutionary histories of a few, large, precursor bodies2. Our findings also support the model that asteroids formed big through the gravitational collapse of material in a protoplanetary disk3.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Get just this article for as long as you need it

$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: IMB asteroid families.
Fig. 2: Dependence of the mean eccentricity and the mean inclination on asteroid size.
Fig. 3: Asteroid SFDs.
Fig. 4: Chaotic orbital evolution of resonant and non-resonant asteroids.

References

  1. Hirayama, K. Groups of asteroids probably of common origin. Astron. J. 31, 185–188 (1918).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  2. Burbine, T. H., McCoy, T. J., Meibom, A., Gladman, B. & Keil, K. in Asteroids III (eds Bottke, W. F. Jr et al.) 653–667 (Univ. Arizona Press, Tucson, 2002).

  3. Johansen, A. et al. Rapid planetesimal formation in turbulent circumstellar disks. Nature 448, 1022–1025 (2007).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  4. Knežević, Z. & Milani, A. Synthetic proper elements for outer main belt asteroids. Celest. Mech. Dyn. Astr. 78, 17–46 (2000).

    Article  ADS  MATH  Google Scholar 

  5. Nesvorný, D. Nesvorný HCM Asteroid Families V3.0. EAR-A-VARGBDET-5-NESVORNYFAM-V3.0 (NASA Planetary Data System, 2015).

  6. Nesvorný, D., Broz, M. & Carrruba, V. in Asteroids IV (eds Michel, P. et al.) 297–321 (Univ. Arizona Press, Tucson, 2015).

  7. Zappala, V., Cellino, A., Farinella, P. & Knežević, Z. Asteroid families. I. Identification by hierarchical clustering and reliability assessment. Astron. J. 100, 2030–2046 (1990).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  8. Parker, A. et al. The size distributions of asteroid families in the SDSS Moving Object Catalog 4. Icarus 198, 138–155 (2008).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  9. Milani, A. et al. Asteroid families classification: Exploiting very large datasets. Icarus 239, 46–73 (2014).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  10. Bottke, W. F., Vokrouhlický, D., Rubincam, D. P. & Broz, M. in Asteroids III (eds Bottke, W. F. Jr et al.) 395–408 (Univ. Arizona Press, Tucson, 2002).

  11. Spoto, F., Milani, A. & Knežević, Z. Asteroid family ages. Icarus 257, 275–289 (2015).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  12. Dohnanyi, J. S. Collisional model of asteroids and their debris. J. Geophys. R. 74, 2531–2554 (1969).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  13. Durda, D. D. & Dermott, S. F. The collisional evolution of the asteroid belt and its contribution to the zodiacal cloud. Icarus 130, 140–164 (1997).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  14. Vokrouhlický, D. & Farinella, P. Efficient delivery of meteorites to the Earth from a wide range of asteroid parent bodies. Nature 407, 606–608 (2000).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  15. Bottke, W. F., Rubincam, D. P. & Burns, J. A. Dynamical evolution of main belt meteoroids: numerical simulations incorporating planetary perturbations and Yarkovsky thermal forces. Icarus 145, 301–331 (2000).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  16. Jacobson, S. A., Marzari, F., Rossi, A., Scheeres, D. J. & Davis, D. R. Effect of rotational disruption on the size-frequency distribution of the main belt asteroid population. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 439, L95–L99 (2014).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  17. Morbidelli, A. & Nesvorný, D. Numerous weak resonances drive asteroids toward terrestrial planet’s orbits. Icarus 139, 295–308 (1999).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  18. Minton, D. A. & Malhotra, R. Dynamical erosion of the asteroid belt and implications for large impacts in the inner Solar System. Icarus 207, 744–757 (2010).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  19. Delbo', M., Walsh, K., Avdellidou, C., Morbidelli, M. Identification of a primordial asteroid family constrains the original planetesimal population. Science 357, 1026–1029 (2017).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  20. Milani, A. & Nobili, A. Integration error over a very long time span. Celest. Mech. Dyn. Astr. 43, 1–34 (1988).

    ADS  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  21. The OrbFit Software Package (The OrbFit Consortium); http://adams.dm.unipi.it/orbfit/

  22. Carruba, V.,Burns, J. A., Bottke, W. & Nesvorný, D. Orbital evolution of the Gefion and Adeona asteroid families: Close encounters with massive asteroids and the Yarkovsky effect. Icarus 162, 308–327 (2003).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  23. Murray, C. D. & Dermott, S. F. Solar System Dynamics (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1999).

  24. Fisher, R. A. Statistical Methods for Research Workers 14th edn (Hafner, Darien, 1970).

  25. Masiero, J. R. et al. Asteroid family identification using the Hierarchical Clustering Method and WISE/NEOWISE physical properties. Astrophys. J. 770, 7–29 (2013).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

A.A.C. thanks Z. Knežević for his advice on using ORBIT9 and on generating proper elements, and acknowledges the SFI/HEA Irish Centre for High-End Computing (ICHEC) for the provision of computational facilities and support. Astronomical research at the Armagh Observatory and Planetarium is funded by the Northern Ireland Department of Communities (DfC).

Author information

Author notes

  1. Dan Li

    Present address: National Optical Astronomy Observatory, Tucson, AZ, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Astronomy, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Stanley F. Dermott & J. Malcolm Robinson

  2. Armagh Observatory and Planetarium, Armagh, UK

    Apostolos A. Christou

  3. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Dan Li

  4. Florida Space Institute, Orlando, FL, USA

    Thomas. J. J. Kehoe

Authors
  1. Stanley F. Dermott
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Apostolos A. Christou
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Dan Li
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Thomas. J. J. Kehoe
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. J. Malcolm Robinson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

S.F.D. initiated and directed the research and wrote the paper. A.A.C. performed the numerical investigations of chaotic orbital evolution and wrote the corresponding part of the Methods. D.L., T.J.J.K. and J.M.R. contributed to the data analysis.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Stanley F. Dermott.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher’s note: Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figures 1–5, Supplementary Tables 1–2

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Dermott, S.F., Christou, A.A., Li, D. et al. The common origin of family and non-family asteroids. Nat Astron 2, 549–554 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-018-0482-4

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-018-0482-4

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing