Image Details
Caption: Figure 2.
The best-fit V envelope for the Merxia family (C0 = 3 × 10−5 au, red lines; the black dots are the HCM family members). Asteroid 808 Merxia is perfectly centered in the V-shaped envelope and is likely the true largest member in the family. Asteroids 1327, 6633, and 50694 are suspected interlopers. The Merxia family age is estimated to be ∼500 Myr from Equation (3), but the previous detailed Yarkovsky–YORP chronology modeling established tage = 250 ± 100 Myr (D. Vokrouhlický et al. 2006). This illustrates a case where the V-envelope method can significantly overestimate the true age of a family (due to the neglected effect of ejection velocities).
© 2026. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.