Collisional evolution of the early asteroid belt

We present numerical results obtained by a simulation of the collisional process between asteroids and scattered comets from the Uranus–Neptune zone. This mechanism allows the use of single exponent incremental size distributions for the initial belt reaching a final distribution that matches the observed population very well. Since the cometary bombardment was extremely efficient removing mass from the primordial asteroid belt in a very short time, we always obtained belts with total masses less than 0.001 M⊕ after ≈ 2×107 yrs. This result allows processes with an important initial mass preserving Vestas basaltic crust.