Interpretation of (596) Scheila's Triple Dust Tails
Abstract
Strange-looking dust cloud around asteroid (596) Scheila was discovered on 2010 December 11.44-11.47. Unlike normal cometary tails, it consisted of three tails and faded within two months. We constructed a model to reproduce the morphology of the dust cloud based on the laboratory measurement of high velocity impacts and the dust dynamics. As the result, we succeeded in the reproduction of peculiar dust cloud by an impact-driven ejecta plume consisting of an impact cone and downrange plume. Assuming an impact angle of 45 deg, our model suggests that a decameter-sized asteroid collided with (596) Scheila from the direction of (alpha, delta) = (60deg, -40deg) in J2000 coordinates on 2010 December 3. The maximum ejection velocity of the dust particles exceeded 100 m/s. Our results suggest that the surface of (596) Scheila consists of materials with low tensile strength.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1110.1150,
title = {Interpretation of (596) Scheila's Triple Dust Tails},
author = {Masateru Ishiguro and Hidekazu Hanayama and Sunao Hasegawa and Yuki Sarugaku and Jun-ichi Watanabe and Hideaki Fujiwara and Hiroshi Terada and Henry H. Hsieh and Jeremie J. Vaubaillon and Nobuyuki Kawai and Kenshi Yanagisawa and Daisuke Kuroda and Takeshi Miyaji and Hideo Fukushima and Kouji Ohta and Hiromi Hamanowa and Junhan Kim and Jeonghyun Pyo and Akiko M. Nakamura},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1110.1150},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
4 figures 1 table, accepted for publication in ApJL