Related papers: Asteroid Deflection: How, where and when?
The rotational distribution of asteroids as a function of their size is used {as a diagnostic of} their physical properties and evolution. Recent photometric surveys from the Gaia mission, allowing observation of asteroids with long spin…
NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission is the first full-scale test of the kinetic impactor method for asteroid deflection, in which a spacecraft intentionally impacts an asteroid to change its trajectory. DART represents an…
Whenever a freely spinning body is found in a complex rotational state, this means that either the body is a recent victim of an impact or a tidal interaction, or is a fragment of a recently disrupted progenitor. Another factor (relevant…
The Monte Carlo method of the nominal orbit clonning was applied to the case of 99942 Apophis, the asteroid from the Aten group. Calculations based on observations from the time interval of 2004 03 15 - 2008 01 09 have shown that the…
An increasing number of Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) in the range of a few hundred meters to a few kilometres in size have relatively high spin rates, from less than 4 h, down to $\sim$2.2 h, depending on spectral type. For some of these…
We present a method for calculating precise distances to asteroids using only two nights of data from a single location --- far too little for an orbit --- by exploiting the angular reflex motion of the asteroids due to Earth's axial…
Surface charging phenomenon of asteroids, mainly resulting from solar wind plasma and solar radiation, has been studied extensively. However, the influence of asteroid's rotation on surface charging has yet to be fully understood. Here…
The cumulative effects of weak resonant and secular perturbations by the major planets produce chaotic behavior of asteroids on long timescales. Dynamical chaos is the dominant loss mechanism for asteroids with diameters D > 10 km in the…
Asteroid 99942 Apophis will pass near the Earth in April 2029. Expected to miss our planet by a safe margin, that could change if Apophis' path was perturbed by a collision with another asteroid in the interim. Though the statistical chance…
The preliminary mission design of spacecraft missions to asteroids often involves, in the early phases, the selection of candidate target asteroids. The final result of such an analysis is a list of asteroids, ranked with respect to the…
Earth-sized planets were observed in close-in orbits around M dwarfs. While more and more planets are expected to be uncovered around M dwarfs, theories of their formation and dynamical evolution are still in their infancy. We investigate…
Context. Rotational instability of rubble-pile asteroids can trigger mass shedding, forming transient debris clouds that may provide the initial conditions for secondary formation in binary systems. Aims. We investigate the dynamical and…
Neutron stars, asteroids, comets, cosmic-dust granules, spacecraft, as well as whatever other freely spinning body dissipate energy when they rotate about any axis different from principal. We discuss the internal-dissipation-caused…
Asteroid mining can become an enabling technology to establish a sustainable manned colony on Mars, which requires metallic materials more often than they are readily available in shipments from Earth. This paper describes a feasibility…
In this work we explore a new dynamical path for the delivery of low-inclination comets. In a configuration formed by an interior giant planet and an exterior massive debris disk, where the mass is accounted for by the 50 largest objects in…
A realistic mission scenario for the deflection of fictitious asteroid 2015PDC is investigated that makes use of the ion beam shepherd concept as primary deflection technique. The article deals with the design of a low thrust rendezvous…
Direct detection of dark matter continues to elude scientists' many attempts to see it interact, and still to this day the only way we know it is there is through observed gravitational effects. The many search experiments are at the point…
The orbital dynamics of a spacecraft orbiting around irregular small celestial bodies is a challenging problem. Difficulties to model the gravity field of these bodies arise from the poor knowledge of the exact shape as observed from the…
Do white dwarfs host asteroid systems? Although several lines of argument suggest that white dwarfs may be orbited by large populations of asteroids, transits would provide the most direct evidence. We demonstrate that the Kepler mission…
There are thousands of asteroids in near-Earth space and millions in the Main Belt. They are diverse in physical properties and composition and are time capsules of the early solar system. This makes them strategic locations for planetary…