Asteroid Family Physical Properties

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent datasets on asteroid family physical properties, analyzing their composition, mineralogy, and evolution, while discussing data limitations and open research questions.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive review of new physical property datasets for asteroid families and highlights current limitations and open questions in the field.

Findings

New datasets reveal diverse physical properties of asteroid families.

Current data limitations hinder comprehensive understanding.

Open questions remain about asteroid family evolution.

Abstract

An asteroid family is typically formed when a larger parent body undergoes a catastrophic collisional disruption, and as such family members are expected to show physical properties that closely trace the composition and mineralogical evolution of the parent. Recently a number of new datasets have been released that probe the physical properties of a large number of asteroids, many of which are members of identified families. We review these data sets and the composite properties of asteroid families derived from this plethora of new data. We also discuss the limitations of the current data, and the open questions in the field.