Physical properties of asteroids

Abstract

The most significant data on the physical properties of main-belt and near-Earth asteroids obtained by photometric, polarimetric, spectroscopic and other techniques, including space missions «Galileo» and NEAR, are presented. The review contains such topics as: structure of the asteroid belt, asteroidal groups and families; taxonomy and composition of asteroids; sizes, masses and densities; shapes and rotation of asteroids; optical characterictics and surface structure; on the origin of asteroids. In Conclusion the most important problems of ground-based observations of asteroids are set up.