Color[edit]

Asteroids become darker and redder with age due to space weathering.[61] However evidence
suggests most of the color change occurs rapidly, in the first hundred thousands years, limiting the
usefulness of spectral measurement for determining the age of asteroids. [62]

Classification[edit]
Asteroids are commonly classified according to two criteria: the characteristics of their orbits, and
features of their reflectance spectrum.

Orbital classification[edit]
Main articles: Asteroid group and Asteroid family

Many asteroids have been placed in groups and families based on their orbital characteristics. Apart
from the broadest divisions, it is customary to name a group of asteroids after the first member of
that group to be discovered. Groups are relatively loose dynamical associations, whereas families
are tighter and result from the catastrophic break-up of a large parent asteroid sometime in the past.
[63]
Families have only been recognized within the asteroid belt. They were first recognized
by Kiyotsugu Hirayama in 1918 and are often called Hirayama families in his honor.

About 3035% of the bodies in the asteroid belt belong to dynamical families each thought to have a
common origin in a past collision between asteroids. A family has also been associated with the
plutoid dwarf planet Haumea.