The Themis-Beagle families: clues into space weathering processes on primitive asteroids
Abstract
The Themis family is a natural laboratory to study the asteroids-comets continuum and space weathering effects. Recently water ice and organics were detected on 24 Themis indicating that the Themis family may be an important reservoir of ice. Moreover, some main belt comets may be related with the Themis family because of orbital proximities and spectral properties analogies. Within the old Themis family members, a young sub-family, Beagle, formed less than 10 Myr ago, has been identified. Thus the Themis family is very important to shed light on the asteroid-comet continuum, to constrain the abundances of water ices in the outer part of the main belt, and to probe space weathering effects on old Themis and young Beagle families' members.
- Publication:
-
European Planetary Science Congress
- Pub Date:
- October 2015
- Bibcode:
- 2015EPSC...10...96F