The Hoomeister Asteroid Family: Inferences from Physical Data
نویسندگان
چکیده
Asteroid (1726) Hoomeister is the lowest{ numbered and probably the largest member of a small, very compact dynamical family. Up to now, the only physical information available on this family consisted of the comparatively low IRAS albedos of Hoomeister and two other family members. After discussing the properties of the family, we report on our own observations of the optical reeectance spectrum of Hoomeister, carried out with the 1.54 m telescope of the Bologna Observatory and a CCD spectrograph. The spectrum has been found to be at and featureless over the whole wavelength range between about 5200 and 9000 A, resembling those of asteroids belonging to the C and F taxonomic types. This result supports the hypothesis that the family was generated in the break{up of a carbon{rich parent asteroid 50 to 100 km in diameter, and that it is compositionally distinct from (and genetically unrelated to) some neighbouring groupings in proper element space.
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