Related papers: Asteroid Surface Geophysics
Asteroids near the Sun can attain equilibrium temperatures sufficient to induce surface modification from thermal fracture, desiccation and decomposition of hydrated silicates. We present optical observations of nine asteroids with…
Estimating surface properties such as porosity and grain sizes is key for planning lander missions and landing site selection on icy moons. However, spaceborne instruments do not measure the regolith properties directly: instead, they…
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…
We study the roughness of stylolite surfaces (i.e. natural pressure-dissolution surfaces in sedimentary rocks) from profiler measurements at laboratory scales. The roughness is shown to be nicely described by a self-affine scaling…
Although there is abundant and diverse observational evidence in support of white dwarf stars hosting planets or debris disks which form in the catastrophic destruction of various planetary bodies, the key processes that explain these…
Asteroids and other small bodies in the solar system tend to have irregular shapes, owing to their low gravity. This irregularity does not only apply to the topology, but also to the underlying geology, potentially containing regions of…
Many asteroids are rubble piles with irregular shapes. While the irregular shapes of large asteroids may be attributed to collisional events, those of small asteroids may result from not only impact events but also rotationally induced…
The subject of satellite formation is strictly linked to the one of planetary formation. Giant planets strongly shape the evolution of the circum-planetary disks during their formation and thus, indirectly, influence the initial conditions…
NASA has developed a "Figure of Merit" method to grade the fidelity of lunar simulants for scientific and engineering purposes. Here we extend the method to grade asteroid simulants, both regolith and cobble variety, and we apply the method…
I set the stage for discussion of the stellar populations in interacting galaxies by looking back over the slow development of our understanding of these systems. From early anecdotal collections, to systematic cataloging, and finally to…
Meteorite craters on the asteroid surface obstruct the horizontal flow of solar wind, forming a plasma wake that modulates the particle fluxes and the electrostatic environment far downstream. In this study, surface charging properties of…
The field of planet formation is in an exciting era, where recent observations of disks around low- to intermediate-mass stars made with state of the art interferometers and high-contrast optical and IR facilities have revealed a diversity…
During their formative stages, giant planets are fed by infalling material sourced from the background circumstellar disk. Due to conservation of angular momentum, the incoming gas and dust collects into a circumplanetary disk that…
Oscillations detected on the solar surface provide a unique possibility for investigations of the interior properties of a star. Through major observational efforts, including extensive observations from space, as well as development of…
In the last 15 years, since the discovery of the first low-mass planets beyond the solar system, there has been tremendous progress in understanding the diversity of (super-)Earth and sub-Neptune exoplanets. Especially the influence of the…
Binary asteroid formation is a highly complex process, which has been highlighted with recent observations of satellites with unexpected shapes, such as the oblate Dimorphos by the NASA DART mission and the contact binary Selam by NASA's…
In studies of the oldest solar system bodies - comets and asteroids - it is their fragments - meteoroids - that provide the most accessible planetary material for detailed laboratory analysis in the form of dust particles or meteorites.…
Over the past 10 years abundant evidence has emerged that many (if not all) stars are born with circumstellar disks. Understanding the evolution of post-accretion disks can provide strong constraints on theories of planet formation and…
Every second millions of small meteoroids enter the Earth's atmosphere producing dense plasmas. Radars easily detect these plasmas and researchers use this data to characterize both the meteoroids and the atmosphere. This paper develops a…
The detailed interior structure models of super-Earth planets show that there is degeneracy in the possible bulk compositions of a super-Earth at a given mass and radius, determined via radial velocity and transit measurements,…