Related papers: Dynamical evolution of V-type asteroids in the cen…
Near Earth Objects (NEOs) are a transient population of small bodies with orbits near or in the terrestrial planet region. They represent a mid-stage in the dynamical cycle of asteroids and comets, which starts with their removal from the…
Recent observations of the Galactic center revealed a nuclear disk of young OB stars near the massive black hole (MBH), in addition to many similar outlying stars with higher eccentricities and/or high inclinations relative to the disk…
Red (S > 10%/0.1 micron) spectral slopes are common among Centaurs and trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) in the outer solar system. Interior to and co-orbital with Jupiter, the red (S approx. = 10%/0.1 micron) slopes of D-type main-belt and…
Containing only a few percent the mass of the moon, the current asteroid belt is around three to four orders of magnitude smaller that its primordial mass inferred from disk models. Yet dynamical studies have shown that the asteroid belt…
In this work, we construct a new model for the collisional evolution of the main asteroid belt. Our goals are to test the scaling law of Benz and Asphaug (1999) and ascertain if it can be used for the whole belt. We want to find initial…
Main-belt asteroids have been continuously colliding with one another since they were formed. Its size distribution is primarily determined by the size dependence of asteroid strength against catastrophic impacts. The strength scaling law…
At present, approximately 1500 asteroids are known to evolve inside or sticked to the exterior 1:2 resonance with Mars at a = 2.418 AU, being (142) Polana the largest member of this group. The effect of the forced secular modes superposed…
The Missing Mantle Problem refers to the apparent scarcity of olivine rich (A-type) asteroids in the main belt, despite expectations that such bodies should be common if differentiated parent bodies were widely disrupted. Conversely,…
The recent years have witnessed a carnival of discoveries in the Outer Solar System. Here we provide evidence from numerical simulations of orbital stability to suggest the possible existence of two long lived belts of primordial…
Mean motion resonances play a fundamental role in the dynamics of the small bodies of the Solar System. The last decades of the 20th century gave us a detailed description of the dynamics as well as the process of capture of small bodies in…
We present a numerical method to estimate the strengths of arbitrary three body mean motion resonances between two planets in circular coplanar orbits and a massless particle in an arbitrary orbit. This method allows us to obtain an atlas…
We explore the correlation between an asteroid's taxonomy and photometric phase curve using the H, G12 photometric phase function, with the shape of the phase function described by the single parameter G12. We explore the usability of G12…
Jupiter family comets contribute a significant amount of debris to near-Earth space. However, telescopic observations of these objects seem to suggest they have short physical lifetimes. If this is true, the material generated will also be…
The Hungaria asteroids are interior to the main asteroid belt, with semimajor axes between 1.8 and 2 AU, low eccentricities and inclinations of 16-35 degrees. Small asteroids in the Hungaria region are dominated by a collisional family…
Interplanetary dust in the inner solar system originates from multiple sources, including short-period comets and main-belt asteroids. In this work, we focus specifically on the dynamical evolution of asteroid-derived dust using N-body…
We consider the role of the dwarf planet Ceres on the secular dynamics of the asteroid main belt. Specifically, we examine the post impact evolution of asteroid families due to the interaction of their members with the linear nodal secular…
The NASA Dawn mission has extensively examined the surface of asteroid Vesta, the second most massive body in the main belt. The high quality of the gathered data provides us with an unique opportunity to determine the surface and internal…
It is well known that some Main Belt asteroids show comet-like features. A representative example is the first known Main Belt comet 133P/(7968) Elst-Pizarro. If the mechanisms causing this activity are too weak to develop visually evident…
The (778) Theobalda asteroid family attracted little attention so far, but our study shows that it is important in several aspects. In this paper we investigate the origin and evolution of Theobalda family. Firstly, we identify the family…
The discovery of 1991 VG on 1991 November 6 attracted an unprecedented amount of attention as it was the first near-Earth object (NEO) ever found on an Earth-like orbit. At that time, it was considered by some as the first representative of…