Revising the age for the Baptistina asteroid family using WISE/NEOWISE data

Abstract

We have used numerical routines to model the evolution of a simulated Baptistina family to constrain its age in light of new measurements of the diameters and albedos of family members from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer. We also investigate the effect of varying the assumed physical and orbital parameters on the best-fitting age. We find that the physically allowed range of assumed values for the density and thermal conductivity induces a large uncertainty in the rate of evolution. When realistic uncertainties in the family members' physical parameters are taken into account we find the best-fitting age can fall anywhere in the range of 140-320 Myr. Without more information on the physical properties of the family members it is difficult to place a more firm constraint on Baptistina's age.

27 pages, 16 figures, accepted to ApJ

References in corpus (7)

• The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE): Mission Description and Initial On-orbit Performance
• Preliminary Results from NEOWISE: An Enhancement to the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer for Solar System Science
• Main Belt Asteroids with WISE/NEOWISE I: Preliminary Albedos and Diameters
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