Lightcurves of the Karin family asteroids

Fumi Yoshida, Takashi Ito, Budi Dermawan, Tsuko Nakamura, Shigeru Takahashi, Mansur A. Ibrahimov, Renu Malhotra, Wing Huen Ip, Wen Ping Chen, Yu Sawabe, Masashige Haji, Ryoko Saito, Masanori Hirai

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

The Karin family is a young asteroid family formed by an asteroid breakup 5.8 Myr ago. Since the members of this family probably have not experienced significant orbital or collisional evolution yet, it is possible that they still preserve properties of the original family-forming event in terms of their spin state. We carried out a series of photometric observations of the Karin family asteroids, and here we report on the analysis of the lightcurves including the rotation period of eleven members. The mean rotation rate of the Karin family members turned out to be much lower than those of near-Earth asteroids or small main belt asteroids (diameter D < 12 km), and even lower than that of large main belt asteroids (D > 130 km). We investigated a correlation between the peak-to-trough variation and the rotation period of the eleven Karin family asteroids, and found a possible trend that elongated members have lower spin rates, and less elongated members have higher spin rates. However, this trend has to be confirmed by another series of future observations.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)15-22
Number of pages8
JournalIcarus
Volume269
DOIs
StatePublished - May 1 2016

Keywords

  • Asteroids
  • Photometry
  • Rotation

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Astronomy and Astrophysics
  • Space and Planetary Science

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