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1.
We present a comprehensive theory for the breakup conditions for ellipsoidal homogeneous secondary bodies subjected to the tidal forces from a nearby larger primary: for materials ranging from purely fluid ones, to granular rubble-pile gravel-like ones, and to those with either cohesive or granular strength including cohesive rocks and metals. The theory includes but greatly extends the classical analyses given by Roche in 1847, which dealt only with fluids, and also our previous analysis [Holsapple, K.A., Michel, P., 2006. Icarus 183, 331-348], which dealt only with solid but non-cohesive bodies. The results here give the distance inside of which breakup must occur, for both a steadily orbiting satellite and for a passing or impacting object. For the fluid bodies there is a single specific shape (a “Roche Ellipsoid”) that can be in equilibrium at any given distance from a primary, and especially only one shape that can exist at the overall minimum distance (d/R)(ρ/ρp)1/3=2.455, the classical well-known “Roche limit.” In contrast, solid bodies can exist at a given distance from a primary with a range of shapes. Here we give multiple plots of the minimum distances for various important combinations of body shape, spin, mass density, and the strength parameters characterized by an angle of friction and cohesive strength. Such results can be used in different ways. They can be used to estimate limits on strengths and mass densities for orbiting bodies at a known distance and shape. They can be used to determine breakup distances for passing bodies with an assumed strength and shape. They can be used to constraint physical properties such as bulk density of bodies with a known shape that were known to breakup at a given distance. A collection of approximately 40 satellites of the Solar System is used for comparison to the theory. About half of those bodies are closer than the Roche fluid limit and must have some cohesion and/or friction angle to exist at their present orbital distance. The required solid strength for those states is determined. Finally, we apply the theory to the break up of the SL9 comet at close approach with Jupiter. Our results make clear that the literature estimates of its bulk density depend markedly on unknown parameters such as shape, orientation and spin, and most importantly, material strength characterization.  相似文献   

2.
Keith A. Holsapple 《Icarus》2007,187(2):500-509
Holsapple [Holsapple, K.A., 2001. Icarus 154, 432-448; Holsapple, K.A., 2004. Icarus 172, 272-303] determined the spin limits of bodies using a model for solid bodies without tensile or cohesive strength, but with the pressure-induced shear strengths characteristic of dry sands and gravels. That theory included the classical analyses for fluid bodies given by Maclaurin, Jacobi and others as a special case. For the general solid bodies, it was shown that there exists a very wide range of permissible shapes and spin limits; and explicit algebraic results for those limits were given. This paper gives an extension of those analyses to include geological-like materials that also have tensile and cohesive strength. Those strengths are necessary to explain the smaller, fast-rotating asteroids discovered in the last few years. I find that the spin limits for these more general solids have two limiting regimes: a strength regime for bodies with a diameter <3 km, and a gravity regime for the larger bodies with a diameter >10 km (which is the case covered by the earlier papers). I derive explicit algebraic forms for the dependence of the spin limits on shape, mass density and material strength properties. The comparison of the theory to the database for the spins of asteroids and trans-neptunian objects (TNO's) objects shows excellent agreement. For large bodies (diameter D>10 km), the presence of cohesive and/or tensile strength does not permit higher spin rates than would be allowed for rubble pile bodies. Thus, the fact that the spin rates of all large bodies is limited to periods greater than about 2 h does not imply that they are rubble piles. In contrast, for small bodies (D<10 km) the presence of even a very small amount of strength allows much more rapid spins. Small bodies might then be rubble piles but require a small amount of bonding. Finally, I make some remarks about the application of the theory to the TNO's and large asteroids, and question whether a common assumption by researchers that those bodies must take on relaxed fluid shapes is warranted. If not, then the densities and shapes required by that assumption are not valid. I use 2003 EL61 as a prime example.  相似文献   

3.
We present numerical experiments investigating the shape and spin limits of self-gravitating “perfect” rubble piles that consist of identical, smooth, rigid, spherical particles with configurable normal coefficient of restitution and no sliding friction. Such constructs are currently employed in a variety of investigations, ranging from the formation of asteroid satellites to the dynamical properties of Saturn's densest rings. We find that, owing to cannonball stacking behavior, rubble piles can maintain non-spherical shapes without bulk spin, unlike a fluid, and can spin faster than a perfect fluid before shedding mass, consistent with the theory for the more general continuum rubble pile model (Holsapple, 2004, Icarus 172, 272-303). Rubble piles that reassemble following a catastrophic disruption reconfigure themselves to lie within stability limits predicted by the continuum theory. We also find that coarse configurations consisting of a small number of particles are more resistant to tidal disruption than fine configurations with many particles. Overall this study shows that idealized rubble piles behave qualitatively in a manner similar to certain granular materials, at least in the limit where global shape readjustments and/or mass shedding begins. The limits obtained here may provide constraints on the possible internal structure of some small Solar System bodies that have extreme shapes or are under high stress. Amalthea is presented as a case study.  相似文献   

4.
We have observed well-sampled phase curves for nine Trojan asteroids in B-, V-, and I-bands. These were constructed from 778 magnitudes taken with the 1.3-m telescope on Cerro Tololo as operated by a service observer for the SMARTS consortium. Over our typical phase range of 0.2-10°, we find our phase curves to be adequately described by a linear model, for slopes of 0.04-0.09 mag/° with average uncertainty less than 0.02 mag/°. (The one exception, 51378 (2001 AT33), has a formally negative slope of −0.02 ± 0.01 mag/°.) These slopes are too steep for the opposition surge mechanism to be shadow-hiding (SH), so we conclude that the dominant surge mechanism must be coherent backscattering (CB). In a detailed comparison of surface properties (including surge slope, B-R color, and albedo), we find that the Trojans have surface properties similar to the P and C class asteroids prominent in the outer main belt, yet they have significantly different surge properties (at a confidence level of 99.90%). This provides an imperfect argument against the traditional idea that the Trojans were formed around Jupiter’s orbit. We also find no overlap in Trojan properties with either the main belt asteroids or with the small icy bodies in the outer Solar System. Importantly, we find that the Trojans are indistinguishable from other small bodies in the outer Solar System that have lost their surface ices (such as the gray Centaurs, gray Scattered Disk Objects, and dead comets). Thus, we find strong support for the idea that the Trojans originally formed as icy bodies in the outer Solar System, were captured into their current orbits during the migration of the gas giant planets, and subsequently lost all their surface ices.  相似文献   

5.
Ishan Sharma 《Icarus》2009,(2):636-654
Many new small moons of the giant planets have been discovered recently. In parallel, satellites of several asteroids, e.g., Ida, have been found. Strikingly, a majority of these new-found planetary moons are estimated to have very low densities, which, along with their hypothesized accretionary origins, suggests a rubble internal structure. This, coupled to the fact that many asteroids are also thought to be particle aggregates held together principally by self-gravity, motivates the present investigation into the possible ellipsoidal shapes that a rubble-pile satellite may achieve as it orbits an aspherical primary. Conversely, knowledge of the shape will constrain the granular aggregate's orbit—the closer it gets to a primary, both primary's tidal effect and the satellite's spin are greater. We will assume that the primary body is sufficiently massive so as not to be influenced by the satellite. However, we will incorporate the primary's possible ellipsoidal shape, e.g., flattening at its poles in the case of a planet, and the proloidal shape of asteroids. In this, the present investigation is an extension of the first classical Darwin problem to granular aggregates. General equations defining an ellipsoidal rubble pile's equilibrium about an ellipsoidal primary are developed. They are then utilized to scrutinize the possible granular nature of small inner moons of the giant planets. It is found that most satellites satisfy constraints necessary to exist as equilibrated granular aggregates. Objects like Naiad, Metis and Adrastea appear to violate these limits, but in doing so, provide clues to their internal density and/or structure. We also recover the Roche limit for a granular satellite of a spherical primary, and employ it to study the martian satellites, Phobos and Deimos, as well as to make contact with earlier work of Davidsson [Davidsson, B., 2001. Icarus 149, 375–383]. The satellite's interior will be modeled as a rigid-plastic, cohesion-less material with a Drucker–Prager yield criterion. This rheology is a reasonable first model for rubble piles. We will employ an approximate volume-averaging procedure that is based on the classical method of moments, and is an extension of the virial method [Chandrasekhar, S., 1969. Ellipsoidal Figures of Equilibrium. Yale Univ. Press, New Haven] to granular solid bodies.  相似文献   

6.
Keith A. Holsapple 《Icarus》2010,205(2):430-442
The alteration of the spin states of small Solar-System bodies by the YORP thermal effect has recently become a plausible and, for some, the favorite candidate for the formation of binary asteroids. The idea is that if an asteroid is slowly spun up to a state where some strength measure is exceeded; it can no longer remain rigid and adjusts to a new configuration. Such a process might involve global fission, global shape changes without fission, or gradual surface mass loss with subsequent mass re-accumulations forming a secondary body.Here I analyze the changes in the shape, spin, and state during slowly increasing angular momentum of rubble-pile, self-gravitating, homogeneous ellipsoidal bodies undergoing homogeneous motions. I use, as appropriate for rubble-pile asteroids, the strength models of granular materials with zero tensile strength (cohesionless but arbitrary dilatancy); those are characterized by the “angle of friction” material constant. There are distinct limit spins depending on that angle of friction and the shape, which were previously presented [Holsapple, K.A., 2001. Icarus 154, 432-448; Holsapple, K.A., 2004. Icarus 172, 272-303]. Here the deformations and state changes when the angular momentum is slowly increased from that of a limit spin state are determined, to study the YORP processes. When a body is at its limit spin and the angular momentum increases further, the body deforms in a unique way along definite paths in the ellipsoidal shape space: it evolves as an elongating shape with an increasing rotational inertia, which in most cases produces a decreasing spin. I give exact analytical solutions for those shape and spin histories, as well as the histories of the mass density, angular momentum and energy. Comparison to other approaches is made.  相似文献   

7.
David A. Minton 《Icarus》2008,195(2):698-704
Rubble pile asteroids can attain shapes that are dramatically different from those of rotating, self-gravitating equilibrium fluids. A new numerical technique, called “seed growth,” is demonstrated for calculating three-dimensional bodies that are self-gravitating and rotating, and whose every surface is approximately at a constant angle, ?, with respect to the local horizontal. By altering the configuration of cusps, which are points along a constant longitude path where the surface angle changes sign but not magnitude, multiple solution shapes that satisfy the condition that all surface slopes are at a constant angle are possible. Five different cusp configurations are explored here, three of which yield solutions for 20°???30°. Rotational effects are explored, and it is found that for some solution shapes, the ratios of their shortest to longest dimensions, c/a, can fall outside the limits published in the literature for rotating, cohesionless, spheroidal bodies. Solution shapes show some similarities to observed small bodies, such as the saturnian satellite Atlas, the near-Earth Asteroid 1999 KW4, and some contact binary asteroids.  相似文献   

8.
In this paper we present the observational campaign carried out at ESO NTT and VLT in April and May 2006 to investigate the nature and the structure of the near-Earth object (144898) 2004 VD17. In spite of a great quantity of dynamical information, according to which it will have a close approach with the Earth in the next century, the physical properties of this asteroid are largely unknown. We performed visible and near-infrared photometry and spectroscopy, as well as polarimetric observations. Polarimetric and spectroscopic data allowed us to classify 2004 VD17 as an E-type asteroid. A good agreement was also found with the spectrum of the aubrite meteorite Mayo Belwa. On the basis of the polarimetric albedo (pv=0.45) and of photometric data, we estimated a diameter of about 320 m and a rotational period of about 2 h. The analysis of the results obtained by our complete survey have shown that (144898) 2004 VD17 is a peculiar NEO, since it is close to the breakup limits for fast rotator asteroids, as defined by Pravec and Harris [Pravec, P., Harris, A.W., 2000. Icarus 148, 12-20]. These results suggest that a more robust structure must be expected, as a fractured monolith or a rubble pile in a “strength regime” [Holsapple, K.A., 2002. Speed limits of rubble pile asteroids: Even fast rotators can be rubble piles. In: Workshop on Scientific Requirements for Mitigation of Hazardous Comets and Asteroids, Washington, September, 2002].  相似文献   

9.
The locations of the fully despun, double synchronous end states of tidal evolution, where the rotation rates of both the primary and secondary components in a binary system synchronize with the mean motion about the center of mass, are derived for spherical components. For a given amount of scaled angular momentum J/J′, the tidal end states are over-plotted on a tidal evolution diagram in terms of mass ratio of the system and the component separation (semimajor axis in units of primary radii). Fully synchronous orbits may not exist for every combination of mass ratio and angular momentum; for example, equal-mass binary systems require J/J′ > 0.44. When fully synchronous orbits exist for prograde systems, tidal evolution naturally expands the orbit to the stable outer synchronous solution. The location of the unstable inner synchronous orbit is typically within two primary radii and often within the radius of the primary itself. With the exception of nearly equal-mass binaries, binary asteroid systems are in the midst of lengthy tidal evolutions, far from their fully synchronous tidal end states. Of those systems with unequal-mass components, few have even reached the stability limit that splits the fully synchronous orbit curves into unstable inner and stable outer solutions.Calculations of material strength based on limiting the tidal evolution time to the age of the Solar System indicate that binary asteroids in the main belt with 100-km-scale primary components are consistent with being made of monolithic or fractured rock as expected for binaries likely formed from sub-catastrophic impacts in the early Solar System. To tidally evolve in their dynamical lifetime, near-Earth binaries with km-scale primaries or smaller created via a spin-up mechanism must be much weaker mechanically than their main-belt counterparts even if formed in the main belt prior to injection into the near-Earth region. Small main-belt binaries, those having primary components less than 10 km in diameter, could bridge the gap between the large main-belt binaries and the near-Earth binaries, as, depending on the age of the systems, small main-belt binaries could either be as strong as the large main-belt binaries or as weak as the near-Earth binaries. The inherent uncertainty in the age of a binary system is the leading source of error in calculation of material properties, capable of affecting the product of rigidity μ and tidal dissipation function Q by orders of magnitude. Several other issues affecting the calculation of μQ are considered, though these typically affect the calculation by no more than a factor of two. We also find indirect evidence within all three groups of binary asteroids that the semimajor axis of the mutual orbit in a binary system may evolve via another mechanism (or mechanisms) in addition to tides with the binary YORP effect being a likely candidate.  相似文献   

10.
The triaxial figures are very common shape of most of planetary satellites as well as of smaell bodies as asteroids. There are 21 satellites in the Solar System triaxial figures of which were detected in situ evidently (Davies et al., 1995). However, the total number of triaxiaxial satellites in the Solar System should be in fact larger. In this paper the general theory of triaxiality due to tidal forces is discussed in regard to the very recent numerical data. Since they orbit synchronously, as a rule: their orbital periods are equal to the rotational periods, the tidal forces may be responsible for their triaxial figures. On the other hand the origin of triaxiality of asteroids due to another process and the of their figures cannot be axplained by the tidal effects.  相似文献   

11.
We consider the largest impact craters observed on small satellites and asteroids and the impact disruption of such bodies. Observational data are considered from 21 impact-like structures on 13 satellites and 8 asteroids (target body radii in the range 0.7-265 km). If the radius of the target body is R and the diameter of the largest crater observed on this body D, the ratio D/R is then the main observational parameter of interest. This is found on the observed bodies and compared to data obtained in the laboratory. Taking the largest observed value for D/R as a proxy for the ratio Dc/R (where Dc is the diameter of the largest crater that can be formed on a body without shattering it) it was found that for the observed icy satellites Dc,icy≈1.2R and for the asteroids and the rocky satellites Dc,rocky≈1.6R. In laboratory experiments with ice targets at impactor speeds of 1 to 3 km s−1 we obtained Dc,icy≈1.64R.  相似文献   

12.
H. Scholl  F. Marzari 《Icarus》2005,175(2):397-408
In this paper we explore the dynamical stability of the Mars Trojan region applying mainly Laskar's Frequency Map Analysis. This method yields the chaotic diffusion rate of orbits and allows to determine the most stable regions. It also gives the frequencies which are responsible for the instability of orbits. The most stable regions are found for inclinations between about 15° and 30°. For inclinations smaller than 15°, we confirm, by applying a synthetic secular theory, that the secular resonances ν3, ν4, ν13, ν14 rapidly excite asteroid orbits within a few Myrs, or even faster. The asteroids are removed from the Trojan region after a close encounter with Mars. For large inclinations, the secular resonance ν5 clears a small region around 30° while the Kozai resonance rapidly removes bodies for inclinations larger than 35°. The dynamical lifetimes of the three L5 Trojans, (5261) Eureka, 1998 VF31, 2001 DH47, and the only L4 Trojan 1999 UJ7 are determined by numerically integrating clouds of corresponding clones over the age of the Solar System. All four Trojans reside in the most stable region with smallest diffusion coefficients. Their dynamical half-lifetime is of the order of the age of the Solar System. The Yarkovsky force has little effect on the known Trojans but for bodies smaller than about 1-5 m the drag is strong enough to destabilize Trojans on a timescale shorter than 4.5 Gyr.  相似文献   

13.
J.M. Carvano  T. Mothé-Diniz 《Icarus》2003,161(2):356-382
We present an analysis of 460 featureless asteroid spectra in the range 0.5-0.92 μm obtained in the Small Solar System Objects Spectroscopic Survey. The spectra are described in terms of the continuum steepness (cSlope), its concavity (RRE), and the blue wing of drop in the UV reflectance (BD). Comparison with meteorite spectra confirms the link between CM meteorites and asteroids with asteroids with 0.7 μm band. Also, it is found that asteroids with extreme negative slope values may be related to CK chondrites and that asteroids with pronounced concave-down curvature are related to CO chondrites. An analysis of the distribution of the spectral parameters with semimajor axis, diameter, and albedo is performed.  相似文献   

14.
Many asteroids are thought to be particle aggregates held together principally by self-gravity. Here we study — for static and dynamical situations — the equilibrium shapes of spinning asteroids that are permitted for rubble piles. As in the case of spinning fluid masses, not all shapes are compatible with a granular rheology. We take the asteroid to always be an ellipsoid with an interior modeled as a rigid-plastic, cohesion-less material with a Drucker-Prager yield criterion. Using an approximate volume-averaged procedure, based on the classical method of moments, we investigate the dynamical process by which such objects may achieve equilibrium. We first collapse our dynamical approach to its statical limit to derive regions in spin-shape parameter space that allow equilibrium solutions to exist. At present, only a graphical illustration of these solutions for a prolate ellipsoid following the Drucker-Prager failure law is available [Sharma, I., Jenkins, J.T., Burns, J.A., 2005a. Bull. Am. Astron. Soc. 37, 643; Sharma, I., Jenkins, J.T., Burns, J.A., 2005b. Equilibrium shapes of ellipsoidal soil asteroids. In: García-Rojo, R., Hermann, H.J., McNamara, S. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Micromechanics of Granular Media, vol. 1. A.A. Balkema, UK; Holsapple, K.A., 2007. Icarus 187, 500-509]. Here, we obtain the equilibrium landscapes for general triaxial ellipsoids, as well as provide the requisite governing formulae. In addition, we demonstrate that it may be possible to better interpret the results of Richardson et al. [Richardson, D.C., Elankumaran, P., Sanderson, R.E., 2005. Icarus 173, 349-361] within the context of a Drucker-Prager material. The graphical result for prolate ellipsoids in the static limit is the same as those of Holsapple [Holsapple, K.A., 2007. Icarus 187, 500-509] because, when worked out, his final equations will match ours. This is because, though the formalisms to reach these expressions differ, in statics, at the lowest level of approximation, volume-averaging and the approach of Holsapple [Holsapple, K.A., 2007. Icarus 187, 500-509] coincide. We note that the approach applied here was obtained independently [Sharma, I., Jenkins, J.T., Burns, J.A., 2003. Bull. Am. Astron. Soc. 35, 1034; Sharma, I., 2004. Rotational Dynamics of Deformable Ellipsoids with Applications to Asteroids. Ph.D. thesis, Cornell University] and it provides a general, though approximate, framework that is amenable to systematic improvements and is flexible enough to incorporate the dynamical effects of a changing shape, different rheologies and complex rotational histories. To demonstrate our technique, we investigate the non-equilibrium dynamics of rigid-plastic, spinning, prolate asteroids to examine the simultaneous histories of shape and spin rate for rubble piles. We have succeeded in recovering most results of Richardson et al. [Richardson, D.C., Elankumaran, P., Sanderson, R.E., 2005. Icarus 173, 349-361], who obtained equilibrium shapes by studying numerically the passage into equilibrium of aggregates containing discrete, interacting, frictionless, spherical particles. Our mainly analytical approach aids in understanding and quantifying previous numerical simulations.  相似文献   

15.
Hilda asteroids and comets are similar from the compositional point of view. The D-taxonomic class prevailing among Hildas has all the characteristics found in cometary spectra. Jupiter Family Comets (JFCs) coming from the trans-neptunian region are under the gravitational control of Jupiter, making them a dynamically unstable population with a mean dynamical lifetime of 104 to 105 years. In contrast, Hilda asteroids residing in the 3:2 mean motion resonance with Jupiter are a very stable population. But once they escape from the resonance, they are dynamically controlled by Jupiter, and in this sense their behavior resembles that of JFC. We performed a numerical simulation to analyze the dynamical evolution that Hildas follow after escaping from the resonance, and their contribution to the JFC population. We found that 8% of the particles leaving the resonance end up impacting Jupiter. 98.7% of the escaped Hildas live at least 1000 years as a JFC, with a mean lifetime of 1.4×106 years. In particular, escaped Hildas stay mainly in the region of perihelion distances greater than 2.5 AU. On the other hand, the number of escaped Hildas reaching the inner Solar System (q<2.5 AU) is negligible. So, there are almost no Hilda asteroids among the NEO population. We also analyzed the possibility that the Shoemaker-Levy 9 were an escaped Hilda asteroid. In this case, it would be possible to give stronger constraints to its pre-capture orbital elements.  相似文献   

16.
S. Fred Singer 《Icarus》1975,25(3):484-488
Uranus exhibits an unusually large obliquity compared to other planets of the solar system; its equator is inclined by 98° to the plane of its orbit. However its five satellites are remarkably regular, with eccentricities and inclinations very nearly zero, but of course with orbit planes that are tilted by ~98° to the plane of the ecliptic. This circumstance is used here to relate the formation of satellites to planet formation. Six different cases are discussed, of which two can be ruled out and two others are highly improbable. In the analysis, use is made of the fact that satellites in near-equatorial orbits could not follow a rapid (“non-adiabatic”) change of the planet's obliquity. We assume, also, that the observed obliquity is the result of the last stages of planet accumulation. We can therefore exclude contemporaneous formation of planet and satellites, and conclude instead that the satellites were formed or acquired after the planet's axis had been tilted. A plausible scenario involves the tidal capture of a body having 5% to 10% of the planet's mass—sufficient to account for the tilt—followed by its accretion. However, tidal forces break up the body into chunks, slow the accretion, and allow ~1% of the chunks to form the satellites through interaction with a temporary dense atmosphere. The same reasoning may apply also for Saturn and Jupiter. It should be noted that the synchronous orbit it well within the Roche limit for all three planets.  相似文献   

17.
Keith A. Holsapple 《Icarus》2004,172(1):272-303
The study of the equilibrium and stability of spinning ellipsoidal fluid bodies with gravity began with Newton in 1687, and continues to the present day. However, no smaller bodies of the Solar System are fluid. Here I model those bodies as elastic-plastic solids using a cohesionless Mohr-Coulomb yield envelope characterized by an angle of friction. This study began in Holsapple 2001. Here new closed-form algebraic formulas for the spin limits of ellipsoidal shapes are derived using an energy method. The fluid results of Maclaurin and Jacobi are again recovered as special cases. I then consider the stability of those equilibrium states. For elastic-plastic solids the common methods cannot be used, because the constitutive equations lack sufficient smoothness at the limiting plastic states. Therefore, I propose and study a new measure of the stability of dynamic processes in general bodies. An energy-based approach is introduced which is shown to include stability approaches used in the statics of nonlinear elastic and elastic-plastic bodies, spectral definitions and the Liapunov methods used for finite-dimensional dynamical systems. The method is applied to spinning, solid, strained bodies. In contrast to the special fluid case, it is found that the strain energy term of solid materials generally induces stability of all equilibrium shapes, except for two possible cases. First, strain softening in the elastic-plastic law can result in instability at the plastic limit spin. Second, a loss of shear stiffness can give unstable states at specific spins less than the limit equilibrium spins. In the latter case, a solid spinning ellipsoidal body without elastic shear stiffness can spin no faster than with a period of about 3.7 hr, else it will fail by shearing deformations. That is distinctly slower than the oft-quoted limit of 2.1 hr at which material would be flung off the equator by tensile forces. However, the final conclusion is that neither cohesion nor tensile strength is required for the shapes and spins of almost all of the larger observed asteroids: we cannot rule out rubble-pile structures.  相似文献   

18.
A. Carbognani 《Icarus》2011,211(1):519-527
A rotating frequency analysis in a previous paper, showed that two samples of C and S-type asteroids belonging to the Main Belt, but not to any families, present two different values for the transition diameter to a Maxwellian distribution of the rotation frequency, respectively 48 and 33 km. In this paper, after a more detailed statistical analysis, aiming to verify that the result is physically relevant, we found a better estimate for the transition diameter, respectively DC = 44 ± 2 km and DS = 30 ± 1 km. The ratio between these estimated transition diameters, DC/DS = 1.5 ± 0.1, can be supported with the help of the YORP (Yarkovsky-O’Keefe-Radzievskii-Paddack) effect, although other physical causes cannot be completely ruled out.In this paper we have derived a simple scaling law for YORP which, taking into account the different average heliocentric distance, the bulk density, the albedo and the asteroid “asymmetry surface factor”, has enabled us to reasonably justify the ratio between the diameters transition of C-type and S-type asteroids. The same scaling law can be used to estimate a new ratio between the bulk densities of S and C asteroids samples (giving ρS/ρC ≈ 2.9 ± 0.3), and can explain why the asteroids near the transition diameter have about the same absolute magnitude. For C-type asteroids, using the found density ratio and other estimates of S-type density, it is also possible to estimate an average bulk density equal to 0.9 ± 0.1 g cm−3, a value compatible with icy composition. The suggested explanation for the difference of the transition diameters is a plausible hypothesis, consistent with the data, but it needs to be studied more in depth with further observations.  相似文献   

19.
Did tidal deformation power the core dynamo of Mars?   总被引:1,自引:0,他引:1  
Jafar Arkani-Hamed 《Icarus》2009,201(1):31-218
We first show that 7 out of the 20 giant impact basins of Mars recently reported by Frey [Frey, H., 2008. Geophys. Res. Lett. 35. L13203] trace a great circle on Mars. The other five basins trace another great circle and still the other three basins trace yet another great circle. The latter great circle is in good agreement with the pre-Tharsis equator of Mars that is estimated from modeling crustal magnetic anomalies [Arkani-Hamed, J., 2001. Geophys. Res. Lett. 28, 3409-3412] and diagonalizing the moment of inertia of Mars after removing the loading effects of Tharsis bulge [Sprenke, K.F., Baker, L.L., Williams, A.F., 2005. Icarus 174, 486-489]. It is shown in this paper that the three great circles were likely the equatorial plane of Mars at certain times and Mars experienced appreciable polar wander. The great circles also indicate that the asteroids that created the basins were satellites of Mars whose orbits decayed in time through spin-orbit coupling with tidally deforming Mars, and eventually impacted on the planet creating the giant basins at around 4 Ga. The orbital dynamics of four largest asteroids show that they could have orbited Mars for several hundred million years if they were retrograde satellites. Continual elliptical straining of otherwise circular fluid streamlines of the liquid core of Mars by tidal deformation could have exerted a strong strain that was large enough to overcome dissipation and excite the elliptical instability inside the core. We investigate the physical properties of the martian core that are required to allow the tidal deformation to power the core dynamo, i.e., the growth time of the elliptical instability to become shorter than the dissipation time. The tidal energy dissipation rate inside Mars caused by even only one of the 4 largest asteroids is found to be over two orders of magnitude greater than the magnetic energy dissipation rate in the core, indicating that if only one of the 4 largest asteroids were orbiting in retrograde sense, it would have likely powered the core dynamo of Mars for several hundred million years.  相似文献   

20.
We present the results of photometric observations of trans-neptunian object 20000 Varuna, which were obtained during 7 nights in November 2004-February 2005. The analysis of new and available photometric observations of Varuna reveals a pronounced opposition surge at phase angles less than 0.1 deg with amplitude of 0.2 mag relatively to the extrapolation of the linear part of magnitude-phase dependence to zero phase angle. The opposition surge of Varuna is markedly different from that of dark asteroids while quite typical for moderate albedo Solar System bodies. We find an indication of variations of the scattering properties over Varuna's surface that could result in an increase of the lightcurve amplitude toward zero phase angle. It is shown that a similar phase effect can be responsible for lightcurve changes found for TNO 19308 (1996 TO66) in 1997-1999.  相似文献   

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