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1.
2.
Numerical simulations have been used to study high velocity two-body impacts. In this paper a two-dimensional Lagrangian finite difference hydrocode and a three-dimensional smooth particle hydrocode (SPH) are described and initial results reported.

The 2D hydrocode has successfully reproduced both the fragment size distribution and the mean fragment velocities from laboratory impact experiments using basalt and cement mortar. Further, the hydrocode calculations have determined that the energy needed to fracture a body has a much stronger dependence on target size than predicted from most scaling theories. In addition, velocity distributions obtained (using homogeneous targets at impact velocities around 2 km s−1) indicate that mean ejecta speeds resulting from large-body collisions do not generally exceed escape velocities.

The SPH model provides a fully three-dimensional framework for studying impacts, so that phenomena such as oblique collisions or impacts into non-spherical targets may be studied. The gridless code allows for arbitrary levels of distortion, and is hence appropriate for modeling the large-scale deformations which accompany most impact events. Because fragments are modeled explicitly, greater numerical accuracy is achieved in the regions of large fragments than with the purely statistical approach of the 2D model. Of course, this accuracy comes at the expense of significantly greater computational requirements.

These codes can be, and have been, used to make specific predictions about particular objects in our solar system. But more significantly, they allow us to explore a broad range of collisional events. Certain parameters (size, time) can be studied only over a very restricted range within the laboratory; other parameters (initial spin, low gravity, exotic structure or composition) are difficult to study at all experimentally. The outcomes of numerical simulations lead to a more general and accurate understanding of impacts in their many forms.  相似文献   


3.
Impact experiments on porous targets consisting of sintered glass beads have been performed at different impact velocities in order to investigate the disruption impact energy threshold (also called Q) of these targets, the influence of the target compressive strength on this threshold and a scaling parameter of the degree of fragmentation that takes into account material strength. A large fraction of small bodies of our Solar System are expected to be composed of highly-porous material. Depending on their location and on the period considered during the Solar System history, these bodies collide with each other at velocities which cover a wide range of values from a few m/s to several km/s. Determining the impact response of porous bodies in both high- and low-velocity regimes is thus crucial to understand their collisional evolution over the entire Solar System history, from the early stages of planetary formation through collisional accretion at low impact velocities to the current and future stages during which impact velocities are much higher and lead to their disruption. While these problems at large scale can only be addressed directly by numerical simulations, small scale impact experiments are a necessary step which allows the understanding of the physical process itself and the determination of the small scale behavior of the material used as target. Moreover, they are crucial to validate numerical codes that can then be applied to larger scales.Sintered glass beads targets of different shapes and porosity have been built and their main material properties, in particular their compressive strength and their porosity, have been measured. The outcomes of their disruptions both at low and high impact velocities have then been analyzed.We then found that the value of Q strongly depends on the target compressive strength. Measuring the particle velocities as a function of their distance to the impact point, we first found that the attenuation rate of the stress wave in our sintered glass bead targets does not depend on the impact velocity regime. Ejecta velocities as a function of the distance from the impact point can thus be well fitted by a power law with an exponent about −2 in both velocity regimes. We then looked for a scaling parameter that can apply to both regimes. We found that the scaling parameter PI, which is related to the initial peak pressure and to the stress wave attenuation can be used to represent the outcome in a general way. Future investigations will be performed to determine whether these results can be generalized to other kinds of porous materials.  相似文献   

4.
T.M. Davison  G.S. Collins 《Icarus》2010,208(1):468-481
Collisions between planetesimals at speeds of several kilometres per second were common during the early evolution of our Solar System. However, the collateral effects of these collisions are not well understood. In this paper, we quantify the efficiency of heating during high-velocity collisions between planetesimals using hydrocode modelling. We conducted a series of simulations to test the effect on shock heating of the initial porosity and temperature of the planetesimals, the relative velocity of the collision and the relative size of the two colliding bodies. Our results show that while heating is minor in collisions between non-porous planetesimals at impact velocities below 10 km s−1, in agreement with previous work, much higher temperatures are reached in collisions between porous planetesimals. For example, collisions between nearly equal-sized, porous planetesimals can melt all, or nearly all, of the mass of the bodies at collision velocities below 7 km s−1. For collisions of small bodies into larger ones, such as those with an impactor-to-target mass ratio below 0.1, significant localised heating occurs in the target body. At impact velocities as low as 5 km s−1, the mass of melt will be nearly double the mass of the impactor, and the mass of material shock heated by 100 K will be nearly 10 times the mass of the impactor. We present a first-order estimate of the cumulative effects of impact heating on a porous planetesimal parent body by simulating the impact of a population of small bodies until a disruptive event occurs. Before disruption, impact heating is volumetrically minor and highly localised; in no case was more than about 3% of the parent body heated by more than 100 K. However, heating during the final disruptive collision can be significant; in about 10% of cases, almost all of the parent body is heated to 700 K (from an initial temperature of ∼300 K) and more than a tenth of the parent body mass is melted. Hence, energetic collisions between planetesimals could have had important effects on the thermal evolution of primitive materials in the early Solar System.  相似文献   

5.
The outcome of collisions between small icy bodies, such as Kuiper belt objects, is poorly understood and yet a critical component of the evolution of the trans-neptunian region. The expected physical properties of outer Solar System materials (high porosity, mixed ice-rock composition, and low material strength) pose significant computational challenges. We present results from catastrophic small body collisions using a new hybrid hydrocode to N-body code computational technique. This method allows detailed modeling of shock propagation and material modification as well as gravitational reaccumulation. Here, we consider a wide range of material strengths to span the possible range of Kuiper belt objects. We find that the shear strength of the target is important in determining the collision outcome for 2 to 50-km radius bodies, which are traditionally thought to be in a pure gravity regime. The catastrophic disruption and dispersal criteria, , can vary by up to a factor of three between strong crystalline and weak aggregate materials. The material within the largest reaccumulated remnants experiences a wide range of shock pressures. The dispersal and reaccumulation process results in the material on the surfaces of the largest remnants having experienced a wider range of shock pressures compared to material in the interior. Hence, depending on the initial structure and composition, the surface materials on large, reaccumulated bodies in the outer Solar System may exhibit complex spectral and albedo variations. Finally, we present revised catastrophic disruption criteria for a range of impact velocities and material strengths for outer Solar System bodies.  相似文献   

6.
K. Wünnemann  G.S. Collins 《Icarus》2006,180(2):514-527
Numerical modelling of impact cratering has reached a high degree of sophistication; however, the treatment of porous materials still poses a large problem in hydrocode calculations. We present a novel approach for dealing with porous compaction in numerical modelling of impact crater formation. In contrast to previous attempts (e.g., P-alpha model, snowplow model), our model accounts for the collapse of pore space by assuming that the compaction function depends upon volumetric strain rather than pressure. Our new ?-alpha model requires only four input parameters and each has a physical meaning. The model is simple and intuitive and shows good agreement with a wide variety of experimental data, ranging from static compaction tests to highly dynamic impact experiments. Our major objective in developing the model is to investigate the effect of porosity and internal friction on transient crater formation. We present preliminary numerical model results that suggest that both porosity and internal friction play an important role in limiting crater growth over a large range in gravity-scaled source size.  相似文献   

7.
《Icarus》1987,70(3):517-535
The cratering record at Uranus shows two different crater populations of different ages. The old crater population occurs on the heavily cratered surfaces of Oberon, Umbriel, and Miranda, while the younger one is found on Titania, Ariel and the resurfaced areas of Miranda. Since only the young population occurs on Titania, this satellite must have experienced a global resurfacing event which obliterated the older population prior to the impact of objects causing the younger one. The old crater population is characterized by an abundance of large craters and a relative paucity of small ones. The young crater population, however, has an abundance of small craters and a paucity of large ones relative to the old population. Furthermore, the abundance of small craters and the paucity of large craters increases with decreasing density. This change in the size distribution is consistent with a population of impactors that evolved with time by mutual collision, and therefore was probably in planetocentric orbits. In fact, both crater populations may be the result of accretional remnants in planetocentric orbits that evolved with time by mutual collisions. If so, then the higher crater density on Miranda compared to Oberon and Umbriel suggests that both Oberon and Umbriel were also resurfaced early in their histories.A comparison of the Solar System cratering record from Mercury to Uranus (19 AU) shows different crater populations at different locations in the Solar System. Computer simulations using a modified Holsapple-Schmidt crater scaling and short-period comet impact velocities to recover the projectile diameters from the cratering record produce different projectile populations in different parts of the Solar System. Furthermore, adjusting the Jovian crater curve to match that in the inner Solar System requires differences in the impact velocities that are unrealistic for objects in heliocentric orbits. These results suggest that the Solar System cratering record cannot be explained by a single family of objects in heliocentric orbits, e.g., comets. One possible explanation is that the cratering record is the result of different families of objects (possibly accretional remnants) indigenous to that region of the Solar System in which the different crater populations are found. Thus, in the inner Solar System, the impactors responsible for heavy bombardment were in heliocentric orbits with semimajor axes less than 3 AU. In the outer Solar System, they may have been in planetocentric orbits around each of the Jovian planets.  相似文献   

8.
Ejecta from impact craters   总被引:2,自引:0,他引:2  
An important feature of impacts into Solar System bodies is the fate of crater ejecta, the near-surface material launched during the highly dynamic crater formation process. Laboratory measurements of impact crater ejecta from 18 studies are summarized. The data are examined and used to assess our understanding of how the ejecta velocity and mass distributions depend on the conditions of an impact event. The effects of impact speed on the ejecta are reasonably well understood, but the dependences on target properties such as strength and porosity are only poorly constrained. A point-source scaling model for the ejecta mass and velocity distributions is developed and fit to the data for several classes of materials distinguished by porosity.  相似文献   

9.
Patrick Michel  Willy Benz 《Icarus》2004,168(2):420-432
In this paper, we analyze the effect of the internal structure of a parent body on its fragment properties following its disruption in different impact energy regimes. To simulate an asteroid breakup, we use the same numerical procedure as in our previous studies, i.e., a 3D SPH hydrocode to compute the fragmentation phase and the parallel N-body code pkdgrav to compute the subsequent gravitational re-accumulation phase. To explore the importance of the internal structure in determining the collisional outcome, we consider two different parent body models: (1) a purely monolithic one and (2) a pre-shattered one which consists of several fragments separated by damaged zones and small voids. We present here simulations spanning two different impact energy regimes—barely disruptive and highly catastrophic—corresponding to the formation of the Eunomia and Koronis families, respectively. As we already found for the intermediate energy regime represented by the Karin family, pre-shattered parent bodies always lead to outcome properties in better agreement with those of real families. In particular, the fragment size distribution obtained by disrupting a monolithic body always contains a large gap between the largest fragment and the next largest ones, whereas it is much more continuous in the case of a pre-shattered parent body. In the latter case, the ejection speeds of large fragments are also higher and a smaller impact energy is generally required to achieve a similar degree of disruption. Hence, unless the internal structure of bodies involved in a collision is known, predicting accurately the outcome is impossible. Interestingly, disrupting a pre-shattered parent body to reproduce the Koronis family yields a fragment size distribution characterized by four almost identical largest objects, as observed in the real family. This peculiar outcome has been found before in laboratory experiments but is obtained for the first time following gravitational re-accumulation. Finally, we show that material belonging to the largest fragments of a family originates from well-defined regions inside the parent body (the extent and location of which are dependent upon internal structure), despite the many gravitational interactions that occur during the re-accumulation process. Hence fragment formation does not proceed stochastically but results directly from the velocity field imparted during the impact.  相似文献   

10.
We have performed 8 numerical simulations of the final stages of accretion of the terrestrial planets, each starting with over 5× more gravitationally interacting bodies than in any previous simulations. We use a bimodal initial population spanning the region from 0.3 to 4 AU with 25 roughly Mars-mass embryos and an equal mass of material in a population of ∼1000 smaller planetesimals, consistent with models of the oligarchic growth of protoplanetary embryos. Given the large number of small planetesimals in our simulations, we are able to more accurately treat the effects of dynamical friction during the accretion process. We find that dynamical friction can significantly lower the timescales for accretion of the terrestrial planets and leads to systems of terrestrial planets that are much less dynamically excited than in previous simulations with fewer initial bodies. In addition, we study the effects of the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn on the final planetary systems by running 4 of our simulations with the present, eccentric orbits of Jupiter and Saturn (the EJS simulations) and the other 4 using a nearly circular and co-planar Jupiter and Saturn as predicted in the Nice Model of the evolution of the outer Solar System [Gomes, R., Levison, H.F., Tsiganis, K., Morbidelli, A., 2005. Nature 435, 466-469; Tsiganis, K., Gomes, R., Morbidelli, A., Levison, H.F., 2005. Nature 435, 459-461; Morbidelli, A., Levison, H.F., Tsiganis, K., Gomes, R., 2005. Nature 435, 462-465] (the CJS simulations). Our EJS simulations provide a better match to our Solar System in terms of the number and average mass of the final planets and the mass-weighted mean semi-major axis of the final planetary systems, although increased dynamical friction can potentially improve the fit of the CJS simulations as well. However, we find that in our EJS simulations, essentially no water-bearing material from the outer asteroid belt ends up in the final terrestrial planets, while a large amount is delivered in the CJS simulations. In addition, the terrestrial planets in the EJS simulations receive a late veneer of material after the last giant impact event that is likely too massive to reconcile with the siderophile abundances in the Earth's mantle, while the late veneer in the CJS simulations is much more consistent with geochemical evidence.  相似文献   

11.
This paper builds on preliminary work in which numerical simulations of the collisional disruption of large asteroids (represented by the Eunomia and Koronis family parent bodies) were performed and which accounted not only for the fragmentation of the solid body through crack propagation, but also for the mutual gravitational interaction of the resulting fragments. It was found that the parent body is first completely shattered at the end of the fragmentation phase, and then subsequent gravitational reaccumulations lead to the formation of an entire family of large and small objects with dynamical properties similar to those of the parent body. In this work, we present new and improved numerical simulations in detail. As before, we use the same numerical procedure, i.e., a 3D SPH hydrocode to compute the fragmentation phase and the parallel N-body code pkdgrav to compute the subsequent gravitational reaccumulation phase. However, this reaccumulation phase is now treated more realistically by using a merging criterion based on energy and angular momentum and by allowing dissipation to occur during fragment collisions. We also extend our previous studies to the as yet unexplored intermediate impact energy regime (represented by the Flora family formation) for which the largest fragment's mass is about half that of the parent body. Finally, we examine the robustness of the results by changing various assumptions, the numerical resolution, and different numerical parameters. We find that in the lowest impact energy regime the more realistic physical approach of reaccumulation leads to results that are statistically identical to those obtained with our previous simplistic approach. Some quantitative changes arise only as the impact energy increases such that higher relative velocities are reached during fragment collisions, but they do not modify the global outcome qualitatively. As a consequence, these new simulations confirm previous main results and still lead to the conclusion that: (1) all large family members must be made of gravitationally reaccumulated fragments; (2) the original fragment size distribution and their orbital dispersion are respectively steeper and smaller than currently observed for the real families, supporting recent studies on subsequent evolution and diffusion of family members; and (3) the formation of satellites around family members is a frequent and natural outcome of collisional processes.  相似文献   

12.
The PLANCK mission, originally devised for cosmological studies, offers the opportunity to observe Solar System objects at millimetric and submillimetric wavelengths. In this paper we concentrate on the asteroids of the Main Belt, a large class of minor bodies in the Solar System. At present, more that 40 000 of these asteroids have been discovered and their detection rate is rapidly increasing. We intend to estimate the number of asteroids that can be detected during the mission and to evaluate the strength of their signal. We have rescaled the instrument sensitivities, calculated by the LFI and HFI teams for sources fixed in the sky, introducing some degradation factors to properly account for moving objects. In this way a detection threshold is derived for asteroidal detection that is related to the diameter of the asteroid and its geocentric distance. We have developed a numerical code that models the detection of asteroids in the LFI and HFI channels during the mission. This code performs a detailed integration of the orbits of the asteroids in the timespan of the mission and identifies those bodies that fall in the beams of PLANCK and their signal strength. According to our simulations, a total of 397 objects will be observed by PLANCK and an asteroidal body will be detected in some beam in 30% of the total sky scan-circles. A significant fraction (in the range from 50 to 100 objects) of the 397 asteroids will be observed with a high S/N ratio. Flux measurements of a large sample of asteroids in the submillimeter and millimeter range are relevant since they allow to analyze the thermal emission and its relation to the surface and regolith properties. Furthermore, it will be possible to check on a wider base, the two standard thermal models, based on a nonrotating or rapidly rotating sphere. Our method can also be used to separate Solar System sources from cosmological sources in the survey. This work is based on PLANCK LFI activities.  相似文献   

13.
Kris Davidson 《Icarus》1975,26(1):99-101
It is possible that one or more bodies with masses in the range 0.001 to 0.01M⊙ may be loosely bound to the Solar System, at distances of several thousand astronomical units. Such objects would be extremely difficult to detect at visual wavelengths, but they might be discoverable at infrared wavelengths.  相似文献   

14.
P. Lamy  I. Toth 《Icarus》2009,201(2):674-713
We present new color results of cometary nuclei obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) whose superior resolution enables us to accurately isolate the nucleus signals from the surrounding comae. By combining with scrutinized available data obtained with ground-based telescopes, we accumulated a sample of 51 cometary nuclei, 44 ecliptic comets (ECs) and 7 nearly-isotropic comets (NICs) using the nomenclature of Levison [Levison, H.F., 1996. In: Rettig, T.W., Hahn, J.M. (Eds.), Completing the Inventory of the Solar System. In: ASP Conf. Ser., vol. 107, pp. 173-192]. We analyze color distributions and color-color correlations as well as correlations with other physical parameters. We present our compilation of colors of 232 outer Solar System objects—separately considering the different dynamical populations, classical KBOs in low and high-inclination orbits (respectively CKBO-LI and CKBO-HI), resonant KBOs (practically Plutinos), scattered-disk objects (SDOs) and Centaurs—of 12 candidate dead comets, and of 85 Trojans. We perform a systematic analysis of all color distributions, and conclude by synthesizing the implications of the dynamical evolution and of the colors for the origin of the minor bodies of the Solar System. We find that the color distributions are remarkably consistent with the scenarios of the formation of TNOs by Gomes [Gomes, R.S., 2003. Icarus 161, 404-418] generalized by the “Nice” model [Levison, H.F., Morbidelli, A., VanLaerhoven, Ch., Gomes, R., Tsiganis, L., 2008. Icarus 196, 258-273], and of the Trojans by Morbidelli et al. [Morbidelli, A., Levison, H.F., Tsiganis, K., Gomes, R., 2005. Nature 435, 462-465]. The color distributions of the Centaurs are globally similar to those of the CKBO-HI, the Plutinos and the SDOs. However the potential bimodality of their distributions allows to possibly distinguish two groups based on their (BR) index: Centaur I with (BR)>1.7 and Centaurs II with (BR)<1.4. Centaurs I could be composed of TNOs (prominently CKBO-LI) and ultra red objects from a yet unstudied family. Centaurs II could consist in a population of evolved objects which have already visited the inner Solar System, and which has been scattered back beyond Jupiter. The diversity of colors of the ECs, in particular the existence of very red objects, is consistent with an origin in the Kuiper belt. Candidate dead comets represent an ultimate state of evolution as they appear more evolved than the Trojans and Centaurs II.  相似文献   

15.
The Gaia Space Mission [Mignard, F., 2005. The three-dimensional universe with Gaia. ESA/SP-576; Perryman, M., 2005. The three-dimensional universe with Gaia. ESA/SP-576] will observe several transient events as supernovae, microlensing, gamma ray bursts and new Solar System objects. The satellite, due to its scanning law, will detect these events but will not be able to monitor them. So, to take these events into consideration and to perform further studies it is necessary to follow them with Earth-based observations. These observations could be efficiently done by a ground-based network of well-equipped telescopes scattered in both hemispheres.Here we focus our attention at the new Solar System objects to be discovered and observed by the Gaia satellite [Mignard, F., 2002. Observations of Solar System objects by Gaia I. Detection of NEOS. Astron. Astrophys. 393, 727] mainly asteroids, NEOs and comets. A dedicated ground-based network of telescopes as proposed by Thuillot [2005. The three-dimensional universe with Gaia. ESA/SP-576] will allow to monitor those events, to avoid losing them and to perform a quick characterization of some physical properties which will be important for the identification of these objects in further measurements by Gaia.We present in this paper, the beginning of the organization of a Latin-American ground-based network of telescopes and observers joining several institutions in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and other Latin-American countries aiming to contribute to the follow-up of Gaia science alerts for Solar System objects.  相似文献   

16.
Most ion irradiation experiments relevant to primitive outer Solar System objects have been performed on ice and silicate targets. Here we present the first ion irradiation experiments performed on natural complex hydrocarbons (asphaltite and kerite). These materials are very dark in the visible and have red-sloped spectra in the visible and near-infrared. They may be comparable in composition and structure to refractory organic solids on the surfaces of primitive outer Solar System objects. We irradiated the samples with 15-400 keV H+, N+, Ar++, and He+ ions and measured their reflectance spectra in the range of 0.3-2.5 μm before ion implantation and after each irradiation step. The results show that irradiation-induced carbonization gradually neutralizes the spectral slopes of these red organic solids. This implies a similar space weathering trend for the surfaces of airless bodies optically dominated by spectrally red organic components. The reduction of spectral slope was observed in all experiments. Irradiation with 30 keV protons, which transfers energy to the target mostly via electronic (inelastic) collisions, showed lower efficiency than the heavier ions. We found that spectral alteration in our experiments increased with increasing contribution of nuclear versus electronic energy loss. This implies that nuclear (elastic) energy deposition plays an important role in changing the optical properties of irradiated refractory complex hydrocarbon materials. Finally, our results indicated that temperature variations from 40 K to room temperature did not influence the spectral properties of these complex hydrocarbon solids.  相似文献   

17.
The exploration of planet moons and minor bodies (Avduevskii et al., 1996) is a basic task for comprehending the nature of the processes occurring in our Solar System. Knowing the current state of the moons, we can better describe their past and look into the future. This knowledge is important, first of all, for understanding the origin of the Solar System. Interest in the Martian moon Phobos has been displayed during recent decades. The interest is caused by some questions to which there have been no answers up until now (Sagdeev et al., 1988; 1989). For example, there is a question regarding the origin of the moon: whether it is an asteroid captured by Mars’ gravitational field or it is an accumulated body in the Martian orbit. In connection with this, it is interesting to conduct studies aimed at answering this question. If Phobos appears to be an asteroid, then investigations regarding the chemical and isotopic compositions of the moon as the primary matter of the Solar System as well as its evolution are of great interest.  相似文献   

18.
Two populations of minor bodies in the outer Solar System remain particularly elusive: Scattered Disk Objects and Sedna-like objects. These populations are important dynamical tracers, and understanding the details of their spatial- and size-distributions will enhance our understanding of the formation and on-going evolution of the Solar System. By using newly-derived limits on the maximum heliocentric distances that recent pencil-beam surveys for trans-neptunian objects were sensitive to, we determine new upper limits on the total numbers of distant SDOs and Sedna-like objects. While generally consistent with populations estimated from wide-area surveys, we show that for magnitude-distribution slopes of α ? 0.7-1.0, these pencil-beam surveys provide stronger upper limits than current estimates in literature.  相似文献   

19.
We describe an smooth particle hydrodynamics (SPH) model for chemical enrichment and radiative cooling in cosmological simulations of structure formation. This model includes: (i) the delayed gas restitution from stars by means of a probabilistic approach designed to reduce the statistical noise and, hence, to allow for the study of the inner chemical structure of objects with moderately high numbers of particles; (ii) the full dependence of metal production on the detailed chemical composition of stellar particles by using, for the first time in SPH codes, the   Q ij   matrix formalism that relates each nucleosynthetic product to its sources and (iii) the full dependence of radiative cooling on the detailed chemical composition of gas particles, achieved through a fast algorithm using a new metallicity parameter ζ( T ) that gives the weight of each element on the total cooling function. The resolution effects and the results obtained from this SPH chemical model have been tested by comparing its predictions in different problems with known theoretical solutions. We also present some preliminary results on the chemical properties of elliptical galaxies found in self-consistent cosmological simulations. Such simulations show that the above ζ-cooling method is important to prevent an overestimation of the metallicity-dependent cooling rate, whereas the   Q ij   formalism is important to prevent a significant underestimation of the [α/Fe] ratio in simulated galaxy-like objects.  相似文献   

20.
By telescopic tracking, we have established that the transneptunian object (TNO) 2000 CR105 has a semimajor axis of 220±1 AU and perihelion distance of 44.14±0.02 AU, beyond the domain which has heretofore been associated with the “scattered disk” of Kuiper Belt objects interacting via gravitational encounters with Neptune. We have also firmly established that the TNO 1995 TL8 has a high perihelion (of 40.08±0.02 AU). These objects, and two other recent discoveries which appear to have perihelia outside 40 AU, have probably been placed on these orbits by a gravitational interaction which is not strong gravitational scattering off of any of the giant planets on their current orbits. Their existence may thus have profound cosmogonic implications for our understanding of the formation of the outer Solar System. We discuss some viable scenarios which could have produced these objects, including long-term diffusive chaos and scattering off of other massive bodies in the outer Solar System. This discovery implies that there must be a large population of TNOs in an “extended scattered disk” with perihelia above the previously suggested 38 AU boundary. The total population is difficult to estimate due to the ease with which such objects would have been lost. This illustrates the great value of frequent and well time-sampled recovery observations of trans-neptunian objects within their discovery opposition.  相似文献   

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