Vesta Family Article Index for
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Information About

Vesta Family





CHARACTERISTICS


It consists of and 2045 Peking , have an Absolute Magnitude of 12.2, which would give them a radius of about 7.5 km given the same high albedo as 4 Vesta , or somewhat more if they are darker.

The family members originated from an impact on asteroid 4 Vesta , with the giant south pole crater the likely impact site. The family members are thought to be the source of the HED Meteorite s.

The family also includes a few J-type Asteroid s (related to the V-type), which are thought to have come from the deeper layers of Vesta's crust, and correspond to the Diogenite meteorites

A HCM numerical analysis by (Zappala 1995) determined a large group of 'core' family members, whose Proper Orbital Elements lie in the approximate ranges
This gives the approximate boundaries of the family. At the present Epoch , the range of Osculating Orbital Elements of these core members is

The Zappala 1995 analysis found 235 core members. A search of a recent proper element database ( AstDys )for 96944 Minor Planet s in 2005 yielded 6051 objects (about 6% of the total) lying within the Vesta family region as per the first table above.


INTERLOPERS

Spectroscopic analyses have shown that some of the largest non-Vesta members
are in fact interlopers. They are not of the V or J spectral class, but have similar orbital elements by conicidence. These include
306 Unitas , 442 Eichsfeldia , 1697 Koskenniemi , 1781 Van Biesbroeck , 2024 McLaughlin , 2029 Binomi , 2086 Newell , 2346 Lilio , and others. (Identified by inspection of the
PDS asteroid taxonomy data set ).


REFERENCES