Astronomers have discovered 63 previously unknown young asteroid families, groups of space rocks that formed relatively recently through collisions, bringing the total number of known young families in the solar system to 106.
The findings, published in Icarus, are based on an analysis of 1.25 million asteroid orbits using a five-dimensional Hierarchical Clustering Method. Researchers examined how orbital characteristics, such as semimajor axis, eccentricity, inclination, and nodal and perihelion longitudes, clustered over the past 10 million years to identify related groups.
Young asteroid families are generally less than 10–15 million years old and typically contain at least three members. Most of the newly identified groups were less than one million years old and consisted of 3–10 members, with the largest group containing 58. Many are too faint to be easily detected, meaning these are likely just a fraction of the total.
Most of the new families are made up of S-type, or stony, asteroids, unlike the more common carbon-rich C-type asteroids. Notably, 54 per cent of the new groups were found within older, established families, formed when a member of an existing family broke apart further.
The study suggests that many more young asteroid families likely exist but remain undetected due to observational limits. Mapping these families provides new insights into the formation of meteorites and could improve the early detection of potentially hazardous asteroids.
