Department researchers led by Dr. David Nesvorny have identified a series of asteroidal collision families that are responsible for the famous dust bands discovered by the NASA/ESA IRAS infrared observatory. In a paper to be published in the June 2003 Astronomical Journal, Nesvorny, along with colleagues Luke Dones, Bill Bottke, and Hal Levison, all of SwRI's Department of Space Studies, have linked the most prominent IRAS dust bands with their sources.

Paper preprint (~3MB PDF)