03.06

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.