Title:

                    Delivery of meteorites through the nu6 secular resonance
 Authors:

                    Morbidelli, A.; Gonczi, R.; Froeschle, Ch.; Farinella, P.
 Affiliation:

                    AAObservatoire de la Cote d'Azur, Nice, France ABObservatoire de la Cote d'Azur, Nice, France
                    ACObservatoire de la Cote d'Azur, Nice, France ADObservatoire de la Cote d'Azur, Nice, France
 Journal:

                    Astronomy and Astrophysics (ISSN 0004-6361), vol. 282, no. 3, p. 955-979 (A&A Homepage)
 Publication Date:

                    02/1994
 Category:

                    Astrophysics; Meteorites
 Origin:

                    STI; LPI [AN-940950%J]
 NASA/STI Keywords:

                    ASTEROID BELTS, ASTEROIDS, ASTRONOMICAL MODELS, LONG TERM EFFECTS,
                    METEOROIDS, ORBITAL MECHANICS, ORBITAL RESONANCES (CELESTIAL
                    MECHANICS), SOLAR ORBITS, ECCENTRICITY, FRAGMENTATION, MATHEMATICAL
                    MODELS
 LPI Keywords:

                    METEORITES, RESOURCES, METEOROIDS, CELESTIAL MECHANICS, MODEL, ORBIT,
                    THEORETICAL STUDIES, ASTEROID BELT, EJECTION, EARTH CROSSERS, FRAGMENTS,
                    ORBITAL ELEMENTS, ECCENTRICITY, PARENT BODIES, TIMESCALE, DATA, CATALOG,
                    KIRKWOOD GAPS, CALCULATIONS, ORIGIN, SOURCE, NEAR EARTH ASTEROIDS, NEAS
 Bibliographic Code:

                    1994A&A...282..955M
 

                                            Abstract

The nu6 secular resonance provides an effective inner and high-inclination boundary to the main asteroid belt in the proper
element space, as objects inserted into it can undergo drastic secular changes of eccentricity and become Mars-and Earth-crossers.
We have used Morbidelli's (1993) theory for the secular evolution of the orbits lying inside the resonance and Farinella's et al.
(1993a) model for the isotropic ejection of fragments following collisions against existing main-belt asteroids, to study the
efficiency of 20 asteroids close to the nu6 resonance as potential deliverers of planet-crossing fragments. We have found that
several of these asteroids do inject into the resonance a significant fraction of their fragments, which then have their orbital
eccentricities increased up to Mars-and even Earth-crossing values. Therefore some of these bodies-in particular the largest ones,
like 6 Hebe, 304 Olga, 739 Mandeville and 759 Vinifera-are probably efficient deliverers of meteorites. The time required for
these fragments to be transported into Earth-crossing orbits is typically of the order of 106 yr when the eccentricity is directly
pumped up by the resonance to approximately = 0.6, longer when Mars encounters are needed as an intermediate process. Other
asteroids inject a substantial fraction of their fragments into the 3/1 (623 Chimaera, 1892 Lucienne) and 5/2 (631 Philippina, 907
Rhoda, 1222 Tina) Kirkwood gaps. All these asteroids should become the targets of detailed spectrophotometric investigations, to
assess their similarity to some of the known meteorite types.