Dottermasse

Dottermasse is a term that appears in some German- and Dutch-language discussions of fragmentation and decay processes, used to denote the mass of a daughter object produced by a parent body. The concept is not part of a standardized scientific vocabulary, and its exact meaning can vary between sources. In general, dottermasse refers to the mass attributed to a secondary body that results from the breakup, fission, or disintegration of a larger primary object.

Definition and scope. The dottermasse can refer to a single fragment’s mass or to the collective mass of all fragments designated as daughters in a given event or model. It is typically defined within the context of a specific study, model, or simulation, and may depend on how fragments are identified and categorized after a breakup or fragmentation process.

Contexts of use. In planetary science and astrophysics, the term can be used when discussing the breakup of a parent body such as an asteroid or comet, where secondary bodies emerge as fragments. In such contexts, dottermasse helps formalize the accounting of mass in fragmentation sequences. In some niche or speculative discussions, the term may be adopted more broadly to describe the mass of a non-primary object arising from a parent system. The usage is not universal, and many authors would simply refer to fragment masses or daughter fragments without employing the label dottermasse.

Calculation and measurement. Dottermasse is typically determined from observational data or dynamical models that estimate fragment sizes, densities, and orbits. Mass estimates may rely on size measurements, assumed or inferred densities, and, where possible, gravitational interactions.

See also. Fragment mass distribution, daughter nucleus, fragmentation, asteroid breakup.