The Pallas family (adj. Palladian; FIN: 801) is a small asteroid familyofB-type asteroids at very high inclinations in the intermediate asteroid belt.[1][2]
The namesake of the family is 2 Pallas, an extremely large asteroid with a mean diameter of about 512 km.[3] The remaining bodies are far smaller; the largest is 5222 Ioffe with an estimated diameter of 22 km. This, along with the preponderance of the otherwise rare B spectral type among its members, indicates that this is likely a cratering family composed of ejecta from impacts on Pallas. Another suspected Palladian is 3200 Phaethon, the parent body of the Geminid meteor shower.[4] The family was first noted by Kiyotsugu Hirayama in 1928.
From the diagram, their proper orbital elements lie in the approximate ranges
| ap | ep | ip | |
|---|---|---|---|
| min | 2.71 AU | 0.25 | 32° |
| max | 2.79 AU | 0.31 | 34° |
At the present epoch, the range of osculating orbital elements of the members (by comparison to the MPCORB database [1]) is about
| a | e | i | |
|---|---|---|---|
| min | 2.71 AU | 0.13 | 30° |
| max | 2.79 AU | 0.37 | 38° |
