A collisional family of icy objects in the Kuiper belt

Michael E. Brown (), Kristina M. Barkume, Darin Ragozzine and Emily L. Schaller
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Michael E. Brown: California Institute of Technology, Mail Code 150-21, 1200 E. California Blvd, Pasadena, California 91125, USA
Kristina M. Barkume: California Institute of Technology, Mail Code 150-21, 1200 E. California Blvd, Pasadena, California 91125, USA
Darin Ragozzine: California Institute of Technology, Mail Code 150-21, 1200 E. California Blvd, Pasadena, California 91125, USA
Emily L. Schaller: California Institute of Technology, Mail Code 150-21, 1200 E. California Blvd, Pasadena, California 91125, USA

Nature, 2007, vol. 446, issue 7133, 294-296

Abstract: Meet the family In the asteroid belt there are many separate families of asteroids, each consisting of many asteroids with similar orbits that are remnants of a single catastrophic impact. No collisionally created families had been detected in the distant Solar System beyond Neptune. But now Brown et al. describe a family of Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) with surface properties and orbits nearly identical to those of 2003 EL61, which is the third-largest known KBO, large enough to have two moons. The collisional history of the family members should provide invaluable data on the consequences of giant impacts in the Solar System.

Date: 2007
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DOI: 10.1038/nature05619

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