Asteroid families are groups of minor planets which have a common origin in catastrophic disruptions. Young asteroid families are very interesting because they represent the product of their parent body's fragmentation before orbital and physical evolutionary processes could have changed them. A group of minor asteroids associated with the largest body Datura (1270) is of particular interest because it has enough known members and resides in the inner part of the main asteroid belt and is easy to observe. Up to now, 7 members of this family are known. Here we discuss three new members of the Datura Family: 338309(2002 VR17), 2002 RH291 and 2014 OE206. To prove that these recentlydiscovered members belong to the Datura family, we conducted numeric integration with all gravitational perturbation over the last 800 kyrs. In the results, we have found that 338309(2002 VR17) and 2002 RH291 are very close to the mean orbit of this family throughout the calculation. In the case of 2014 OE206, it has a strongly chaotic orbit. The possible explanation of this is in the resonance character of its orbit.
Context. We studied the effect of the mean motion 9:16 resonance with Mars (9:16M) on the dynamics of the very young asteroid family Datura and the young pair (3749) Balam and (312497) 2009 BR60.
Aims. We aim to understand the mechanism of dynamical interaction of the members of a family that are subjected to mean motion resonance in order to precisely estimate the age of an asteroid family or pair and to reconstruct their breakup processes.
Methods. We calculated the expected (9:16M) resonance position, its boundaries, and multiplet fine structure and their time evolution under the effect of Mars orbit variations. We used the Lyapunov characteristic exponent and Euclid algorithm in our analytical calculations. We compared these results with backward numerical integrations of some Datura asteroids to check for consistency.
Results. We explain the strong variations in the semi-major axis of some Datura asteroids as caused by the variations in the orbit of Mars. Using the Datura family as an example, we show that the distance from resonance may be a better measure of chaos than the widely accepted Lyapunov exponent. Additionally, we find that asteroid (3749) Balam exhibits the conspicuous effects of dynamical perturbations that are likely induced by the 9:16M resonance.
Conclusions. Focusing on one of the most robust and well-established young asteroid families, the Datura family, we show that mean motion resonances play an important role as drivers of the dynamical evolution of asteroid families.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.