Investigation of Asteroid Families and Shapes

9318674小行星家族和形状的加菲研究。大多数小行星都是碰撞破碎的星子的碎片，许多小行星家族都是早期分散阶段的破碎体。对单个母天体碎片和小行星家族的研究提供了关于早期太阳系内部瞬态热事件的信息，这些事件加热了它们的母天体，它们的母星子由于行星分化而产生的内部结构，以及使它们破碎的大规模碰撞。加菲博士将进行观测，研究小行星的形状和小行星家族。从光谱中确定小行星家族成员的矿物学成分，以测试小行星家族的遗传模型，识别家族内的闯入者，测试具有小成员的建议家族的真实性，限制小行星家族的寿命，并评估有趣和重要家族的母星子的内部结构。

9318674 Gaffey Investigations of Asteroid Families and Shapes. Most asteroids are fragments of collisionally disrupted planetesimals, and many asteroid families are such disrupted bodies in an early stage of dispersal. Investigations of individual parent body fragments and of asteroid families provide information on the early inner Solar System transient thermal events which heated their parent bodies, the internal structures of their parent planetesimals resulting from planetary differentiation, and the large scale collisions which fragmented them. Dr. Gaffey will conduct observations to investigate asteroid shapes and asteroid families. Mineralogic compositions of asteroid family members will be determined from spectra to test the genetic models of asteroid families, to identify interlopers within families, to test the reality of proposed families with small memberships, to constrain the lifetimes of asteroid families, and to evaluate the internal structure of the parent planetesimals of interesting and important families.