Related papers: Slowly increasing elongations of non-spherical ast…
More than a half of asteroids in the main belt have irregular shapes with the ratios of the minor to major axis lengths less than 0.6. One of the mechanisms to create such shapes is collisions between asteroids. The relationship between…
While the number of asteroids with known shapes has drastically increased over the past few years, little is known on the the time-evolution of shapes and the underlying physical processes. Here we propose an averaged abrasion model based…
Most meteorites are fragments from recent collisions experienced in the asteroid belt. In such a hyper-velocity collision, the smaller collision partner is destroyed, whereas a crater on the asteroid is formed or it is entirely disrupted,…
The overall shape, internal structure and surface morphology of small bodies such as asteroids and comets are determined to a large degree by the last global-scale impact or disruption event. Depending on the specific energy, impacts lead…
Photometric observations of asteroids show that some of them are in non-principal axis rotation state (free precession), called tumbling. Collisions between asteroids have been proposed as a possible asteroid rotation excitation mechanism.…
We numerically investigate how an asteroid's elongation controls the sensitivity of its surface to tidal effects during a distant planetary encounter beyond the Roche limit. We analyze the surface slope and its variation by considering the…
Asteroids are leftover pieces from the era of planet formation that help us understand conditions in the early Solar System. Unlike larger planetary bodies that were subject to global thermal modification during and subsequent to their…
A statistical analysis of brightness variability of asteroids reveals how their shapes evolve from elongated to rough spheroidal forms, presumably driven by impact-related phenomena. Based on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Moving Object…
In the last decade, thanks to the development of sophisticated numerical codes, major breakthroughs have been achieved in our understanding of the formation of asteroid families by catastrophic disruption of large parent bodies. In this…
Global scale impacts modify the physical or thermal state of a substantial fraction of a target asteroid. Specific effects include accretion, family formation, reshaping, mixing and layering, shock and frictional heating, fragmentation,…
We aim to understand how landslides affect the shape and rotational motion of small rubble planetary bodies. We limit ourselves to axisymmetric global landslides, and take the primordial shape of the body to also be axisymmetric. The…
Our knowledge of the strengths of small bodies in the Solar System is limited by our poor understanding of their internal structures, and this, in turn, clouds our understanding of the formation and evolution of these bodies. Observations…
The members of asteroid families have various shapes. We investigate the origin of their shapes by high-resolution impact simulations for catastrophic disruptions using a Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics code. Collisional remnants produced…
The photometry of the minor body with extrasolar origin (1I/2017 U1) 'Oumuamua revealed an unprecedented shape: Meech et al. (2017) reported a shape elongation b/a close to 1/10, which calls for theoretical explanation. Here we show that…
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 size distribution of small asteroids in the Main Belt is assumed to be determined by an equilibrium between the creation of new bodies out of the impact debris of larger asteroids and the destruction of small asteroids by collisions…
About 10% of the observed asteroids have rotational periods lower than P = 3 h and they seem to be relatively close to the spin barrier. Yet, the rotation has often been neglected in simulations of asteroid collisions. To determine the…
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…
Asteroid collisions are one of the main processes responsible for the evolution of bodies in the main belt. Using observations of the Dimorphos impact by the DART spacecraft, we estimate how asteroid collisions in the main belt may look in…
Until recently, most asteroids were thought to be solid bodies whose shapes were determined largely by collisions with other asteroids. It now seems that many asteroids are little more than rubble piles, held together by self-gravity; this…