The Themis family (adj. Themistian; ) is a family of carbonaceous asteroids located in the outer portion of the asteroid belt, at a mean distance of 3.13 AU from the Sun. It is one of the largest families with over 4700 known members, and consists of a well-defined core of larger bodies surrounded by a region of smaller ones. The collisional Themis family is named after its parent body, the asteroid 24 Themis, discovered on 5 April 1853 by Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis.
Description
The Themis family is one of the largest and longest-recognized dynamical families of asteroids, and is made up of C-type asteroids with a composition believed to be similar to that of carbonaceous chondrites.DIVERSITY OF TYPES OF HYDRATED MINERALS ON C≠CLASS ASTEROIDS A. S. Rivkin, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, E. S. Howell, Arecibo Observatory, S. J. Bus, Institute for Astronomy To date, the Themis family comprises approximately 535 known asteroids.
Asteroids in the Themis family share the following orbital elements: semimajor axes between 3.08 AU and 3.24 AU orbital eccentricities between 0.09 and 0.22 orbital inclinations of less than 3°
List
Some of the largest members of this family include:
24 Themis 62 Erato 90 Antiope 104 Klymene 171 Ophelia 222 Lucia 223 Rosa 316 Goberta 379 Huenna 383 Janina 468 Lina 492 Gismonda 515 Athalia 526 Jena 767 Bondia 846 Lipperta
See also Hirayama family
References
External links Nesvorny HCM Asteroid Families V3.0, Small Bodies Data Ferret