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Identifying Collisional Families in the Kuiper Belt

  • Authors: Robert A. Marcus, Darin Ragozzine, Ruth A. Murray-Clay, and Matthew J. Holman

Marcus et al. 2011 The Astrophysical Journal 733 40.

  • Provider: AAS Journals

Caption: Figure 2.

Histogram (panel 1) and cumulative number (panel 2) of KBOs vs. log Δ v min. This collisional family had a 470 km radius progenitor in the hot classical belt ( a = 41 AU, e = 0.1, i = 32°). The family members were all given a velocity kick relative to the largest remnant of Δ v = v esc. Note that the number of family members (solid line) is greater than or equal to the number of background objects (dashed line) for some values of Δ v min. Panels 3 and 4 show the orbital element distribution of the synthetic KBO population for all bodies with no magnitude cutoff, including the collisional family. Note that the family stands out relative to the background particularly in inclination vs. semimajor axis (bottom).

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