Hungaria family in the context of 434 Hungaria


Hungaria family in the context of 434 Hungaria

⭐ Core Definition: Hungaria family

The Hungaria family (003) is a collisional asteroid family of at least 2,966 known asteroids, named for its largest member, the 11-kilometre (6.8 mi)-across asteroid 434 Hungaria. It lies within the larger dynamical group of Hungaria asteroids, a group of asteroids in the far inner asteroid belt, with semimajor axes of 1.78 to 2.00 AU. All members of the family are bright E-type asteroids with albedos of around 0.35-0.6.

An asteroid family is a group of physically related asteroids usually created by a collision with an original larger asteroid, with the fragments continuing on similar orbits to the original. This is distinct from a dynamical group in that the members of a dynamical group only share similar orbits because of gravitational interactions with planets, which concentrate asteroids in a particular orbital range. Members of the Hungaria family are both part of the wider Hungaria dynamical group, and fragments of 434 Hungaria. The family is considered a catastrophic asteroid family because 434 Hungaria, its largest member, makes up only a fifth of the family's mass.

↓ Menu
HINT:

In this Dossier

Hungaria family in the context of Mars-crossing asteroid

A Mars-crossing asteroid (MCA, also Mars-crosser, MC) is an asteroid whose orbit crosses that of Mars. Some Mars-crossers numbered below 100000 are listed here. They include the two numbered Mars trojans 5261 Eureka and (101429) 1998 VF31.

Many databases, for instance the JPL Small-Body Database (JPL SBDB), only list asteroids with a perihelion greater than 1.3 AU as Mars-crossers. An asteroid with a perihelion less than this is classed as a near-Earth object even though it is crossing the orbit of Mars as well as crossing (or coming near to) that of Earth. Nevertheless, these objects are listed on this page. A grazer is an object with a perihelion below the aphelion of Mars (1.67 AU) but above the Martian perihelion (1.38 AU). The JPL SBDB lists 13,500 Mars-crossing asteroids. Only 18 MCAs are brighter than absolute magnitude (H) 12.5, which typically makes these asteroids with H<12.5 more than 13 km in diameter depending on the albedo. The smallest known MCAs have an absolute magnitude (H) of around 24 and are typically less than 100 meters in diameter. There are over 21,600 known Mars-crossers of which only 5751 have received a MPC number.

View the full Wikipedia page for Mars-crossing asteroid
↑ Return to Menu