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.

HED meteorites are differentiated meteorites, which were created by igneous processes in the crust of their parent asteroid.

Most enstatite chondrites have experienced thermal metamorphism on the parent asteroids.

The results allow assessing the soil fertilities of the parent asteroids and planets, and the amounts of biomass that they can sustain.

Most, but not all, ordinary chondrites have experienced significant degrees of metamorphism, having reached temperatures well above 500 C on the parent asteroids.

The largest presumed remnant of this parent asteroid is 298 Baptistina.

Others show indirect evidence that water once flowed on their parent asteroids.

It follows an almost-circular close-to-equatorial orbit around the parent asteroid.

Chondrules form as molten or partially molten droplets in space before being accreted to their parent asteroids.

Linus may have formed out of impact ejecta from a collision with Kalliope or a fragment captured after disruption of a parent asteroid (a proto-Kalliope).