Asteroid albedos: graphs of data

by Wm. Robert Johnston
last updated 28 June 2003

This shows albedo vs. distance for those asteroids with measured albedos (about 700, mostly by IRAS). Note the lower albedos for asteroids beyond 3.3 AU, including Jupiter Trojans at 5.2 AU.

This graph shows the trend in asteroid albedo vs. distance by averaging albedos for the sample from the previous graph (averaged by bins in distance, generally 40 per bin).

This graph depicts osculating orbital elements for asteroids, with the color of points indicating albedo. Note again the general trend of decreasing albedo with increasing semimajor axis.

This graph is similar to the previous graph, but depicts proper elements and shows a smaller range of a and e. Some clustering is evident here, representing asteroid families (groups of asteroids that may be fragments of a common progenitor). One example is the group of bright asteroids with a=~2.2 AU, e=~0.15, which includes members of asteroid family 187.