The Production of Potential Terrestrial Planets Impactors in Family-forming Events in the Asteroid Main Belt
A. Cellino (Torino Astronomical Observatory), B.J. Gladman (Nice Astronomical Observatory), S.P. Manley, F. Migliorini (Armagh Astronomical Observatory), V. Zappalà (Torino Astronomical Observatory)
Significant advances have been obtained recently in the knowledge of the
details of the dynamical evolution and the final fate of family fragments
injected into the most important mean-motion and secular resonances
crossing the asteroid main belt (GAPTEC project).
On the basis of these results, and using the most recent estimates
concerning the impact probabilities among bodies having possible
orbital intersections it is now possible to assess the efficiency of
different asteroid families as the sources of meteoritic fluxes, mainly
for what concerns fairly big impactors, down to some hundreds of meters in
in diameter.
In this paper we show how a reliable estimate of the original family
fragments injected into nearby resonances for different size ranges can
be derived. The results of this investigation can then be used in order
to estimate the number of bodies which ended their subsequent orbital
evolution with a collision with terrestrial planets.