Themis family explained

The Themis family (adj. Themistian;) is a family of carbonaceous asteroids located in the outer portion of the asteroid belt, at a mean distance of 3.13 AU from the Sun. It is one of the largest families with over 4700 known members, and consists of a well-defined core of larger bodies surrounded by a region of smaller ones. The collisional Themis family is named after its parent body, the asteroid 24 Themis, discovered on 5 April 1853 by Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis.

Description

The Themis family is one of the largest and longest-recognized dynamical families of asteroids, and is made up of C-type asteroids with a composition believed to be similar to that of carbonaceous chondrites.^[1] To date, the Themis family comprises approximately 535 known asteroids.

Asteroids in the Themis family share the following orbital elements:

• semimajor axes between 3.08 AU and 3.24 AU
• orbital eccentricities between 0.09 and 0.22
• orbital inclinations of less than 3°

List

Some of the largest members of this family include:

• 24 Themis
• 62 Erato
• 90 Antiope
• 104 Klymene
  • 171 Ophelia 222 Lucia
• 223 Rosa
• 316 Goberta
• 379 Huenna
• 383 Janina
• 468 Lina
• 492 Gismonda
• 515 Athalia
• 526 Jena
• 767 Bondia
• 846 Lipperta

See also

• Hirayama family

References

• Geophysical Evolution of the Themis Family Parent Body. Castillo-Rogez, C.. Schmidt, B. E.. amp. 2010.

External links

• Nesvorny HCM Asteroid Families V3.0, Small Bodies Data Ferret

Notes and References

1. http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2004/pdf/1646.pdf DIVERSITY OF TYPES OF HYDRATED MINERALS ON C≠CLASS ASTEROIDS