Related papers: Origin and dynamical evolution of the asteroid bel…
The asteroid belt is the leftover of the original planetesimal population in the inner solar system. However, currently the asteroids have orbits with all possible values of eccentricities and inclinations compatible with long-term…
The orbital structure of the asteroid belt holds a record of the Solar System's dynamical history. The current belt only contains ${\rm \sim 10^{-3}}$ Earth masses yet the asteroids' orbits are dynamically excited, with a large spread in…
Advances in the discovery and characterization of asteroids over the past decade have revealed an unanticipated underlying structure that points to a dramatic early history of the inner Solar System. The asteroids in the main asteroid belt…
A determination of the dynamical evolution of the asteroid belt is difficult because the asteroid belt has evolved since the time of asteroid formation through mechanisms that include: (1) catastrophic collisions, (2) rotational disruption,…
Asteroids formed in a dynamically quiescent disk but their orbits became gravitationally stirred enough by Jupiter to lead to high-speed collisions. As a result, many dozen large asteroids have been disrupted by impacts over the age of the…
The past decade has brought major improvements in large-scale asteroid discovery and characterization with over half a million known asteroids and over 100,000 with some measurement of physical characterization. This explosion of data has…
The asteroid belt contains less than a thousandth of Earth's mass and is radially segregated, with S-types dominating the inner belt and C-types the outer belt. It is generally assumed that the belt formed with far more mass and was later…
The Dwarf Planet Ceres revealed the presence of ammonia and other unique properties compared to other asteroids in the main belt which suggests that it was not formed in situ. We model the early dynamical evolution of the outer Solar System…
The dynamical architecture and compositional diversity of the asteroid belt strongly constrain planet formation models. Recent Solar System formation models have shown that the asteroid belt may have been born empty and later filled with…
Containing only a few percent the mass of the moon, the current asteroid belt is around three to four orders of magnitude smaller that its primordial mass inferred from disk models. Yet dynamical studies have shown that the asteroid belt…
The asteroid belt is a unique source of information on some of the most important questions facing solar system science. These questions include the sizes, numbers, types and orbital distributions of the planetesimals that formed the…
Planetary systems can evolve dynamically even after the planets themselves have fully formed, and there is circumstantial evidence that most planetary systems become unstable after the disappearance of the gaseous protoplanetary disk.…
The origins of carbonaceous asteroids in the asteroid belt is not fully understood. The leading hypothesis is that they were not born at their current location but instead implanted into the asteroid belt early in the Solar System history.…
The asteroid belt is an open window on the history of the Solar System, as it preserves records of both its formation process and its secular evolution. The progenitors of the present-day asteroids formed in the Solar Nebula almost…
Satellites of asteroids have been discovered in nearly every known small body population, and a remarkable aspect of the known satellites is the diversity of their properties. They tell a story of vast differences in formation and evolution…
The asteroid belt is characterized by an extreme low total mass of material on dynamically excited orbits. The Nice Model explains many peculiar qualities of the solar system, including the belt's excited state, by invoking an orbital…
Asteroids are leftover pieces from the era of planet formation that help us understand conditions in the early Solar System. Unlike larger planetary bodies that were subject to global thermal modification during and subsequent to their…
Collisions are one of the key processes shaping planetary systems. Asteroid families are outcomes of such collisions still identifiable across our solar system. The families provide a unique view of catastrophic disruption phenomena and…
Suggestions have been made that asteroid belts may be important both for the existence of life and perhaps even for the evolution of complex life on a planet. Using numerical models for protoplanetary discs we calculate the location of the…
The terrestrial planets formed by accretion of asteroid-like objects within the inner solar system's protoplanetary disk. Previous works have found that forming a small-mass Mars requires the disk to contain little mass beyond ~1.5 au…