Asteroid family

An asteroid family is a group of asteroids with similar orbital characteristics, usually interpreted as fragments of a common parent body shattered in a collision.

Asteroid collision: A collision between asteroids that can crater, disrupt, or fragment one or both bodies. A catastrophic impact can produce the fragments that share a family's orbit.
Asteroid belt: The region between Mars and Jupiter containing most known asteroids. Most known asteroid families occupy this population.
Flora family: A large asteroid family in the inner main belt, associated with numerous S-type asteroids. Its members and location make it a prominent example of an inner-belt family.
Hirayama family: An asteroid family identified by Kiyotsugu Hirayama through shared orbital characteristics. Hirayama's work established the family concept in asteroid dynamics.
Asteroid family age: An estimate of the time elapsed since the collision that formed an asteroid family. Age estimates constrain how quickly fragments disperse and how old the breakup was.
Yarkovsky effect: A force on a rotating body caused by the uneven emission of absorbed solar heat. It slowly spreads family fragments across orbital space after their formation.
Orbital resonance: A relationship between orbital periods that repeatedly aligns gravitational influences between orbiting bodies. Resonances with Jupiter can modify or disperse family members.
Vesta family: A group of asteroids linked to impact ejecta from the differentiated asteroid 4 Vesta. Its basaltic fragments preserve evidence of a parent body with an igneous crust.
Kiyotsugu Hirayama: A Japanese astronomer who identified groups of asteroids with similar proper orbital elements. His 1918 analysis first recognized several major asteroid families.
Asteroid family interloper: An asteroid that lies within a family's orbital region but did not originate in its breakup. Interlopers can obscure a family's true membership and compositional pattern.

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