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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 8.

Histogram (panel 1) and cumulative number (panel 2) of KBOs vs. log Δ v min. This collisional family had the same progenitor as the family in Figure  6, a 250 km radius KBO in the hot classical belt ( a = 46 AU, e = 0.14, i = 28°). The family members were all given a velocity kick relative to the largest remnant of Δ v = 0.25 v esc. Note that the family members (solid line) dominate the background objects (dashed line) in number within some dynamical volume Δ v min ≲ 2 v esc. Panels 3 and 4 show a plot of the orbital element distribution of the synthetic KBO population for all bodies with no magnitude limit, including the collisional family. Note that the family stands out relative to the background in both eccentricity vs. semimajor axis and inclination vs. semimajor axis.

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