In the past few years, several major space missions have been completed (eg, Deep Impact,
LCROSS, Chandrayaan-1, Stardust, Hayabusa), and a number of spacecraft are currently …

Collisions are one of the key processes sha** planetary systems. Asteroid families are
outcomes of such collision still identifiable across our solar system. The families provide a …

Major advances in our understanding of the universe have historically arisen from dramatic
improvements in our ability to “see.” We have developed progressively larger telescopes …

Advancing technology in near-infrared instrumentation and dedicated planetary telescope
facilities have enabled nearly two decades of reconnoitering the spectral properties for near …

The distribution of asteroids across the main belt has been studied for decades to
understand the current compositional distribution and what that tells us about the formation …

The compilation of a central database for asteroid lightcurve data, ie, rotation rate and
amplitude along with ancillary information such as diameter and albedo (known or …

INTRODUCTION The color and reflectance of asteroids can be used to infer their
compositions and histories. Variations in these spectrophotometric properties are driven by …

Planet formation models suggest the primordial main belt experienced a short but intense
period of collisional evolution shortly after the formation of planetary embryos. This period is …

Context. Large sky surveys provide numerous non-targeted observations of small bodies of
the Solar System. The upcoming LSST of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory will be the largest …

The main belt is believed to have originally contained an Earth mass or more of material,
enough to allow the asteroids to accrete on relatively short timescales. The present-day …