Asteroid Dynamical Families

Abstract

Asteroid dynamical families are extremely important for our understanding of the origin, evolution, and general physical properties of the asteroid population. First identified on the basis of their dynamical properties, families have been soon recognized as the products of well-defined physical processes, namely the disruption of single parent bodies as the consequence of energetic collisional events. The identification of dynamical families has opened important perspectives in all fields of research in asteroid science. The "paradigm" of interpretation of family data has been quickly evolving during the last decade and is now based on the evidence of a complex interplay of different physical and dynamical processes, some of which only recently have been fully recognized. In this chapter, we attempt to give a general and comprehensive review of the subject. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.