Related papers: Thermal Tomography of Asteroid Surface Structure
The subject of this work is the physical characterization of asteroids, focusing on the thermal inertia of near-Earth asteroids (NEAs). Thermal inertia governs the Yarkovsky effect, a non-gravitational force which significantly alters the…
Thermal inertia determines the temperature distribution over the surface of an asteroid and therefore governs the magnitude the Yarkovsky effect. The latter causes gradual drifting of the orbits of km-sized asteroids and plays an important…
The thermal inertia of an asteroid's surface can provide insight into regolith properties, such as the presence of a layer of fine dust, the density and thermal conductivity of a rocky surface, and, together with other observational data,…
The thermal inertia of an asteroid is an indicator of the thermophysical properties of the regolith and is determined by the size of grains on the surface. Previous thermophysical modeling studies of asteroids have identified or suggested…
Recent works have shown that the thermal inertia of km-sized near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) is more than two orders of magnitude higher than that of main belt asteroids (MBAs) with sizes (diameters) between 200 and 1,000 km. This confirms the…
Asteroids smaller than about 100 meters are observed to rotate very fast, with periods often much shorter than the critical limit of 2.2 h. Some of these super-fast rotators can also achieve a very large semi-major axis drift induced by the…
Context. Earlier work suggests that slowly rotating asteroids should have higher thermal inertias than faster rotators because the heat wave penetrates deeper into the sub-surface. However, thermal inertias have been determined mainly for…
By means of a varied-shape thermophysical model (VS-TPM) of Hanus et al. (2015) that takes into account asteroid shape and pole uncertainties, we analyze the thermal IR data acquired by the NASA's WISE satellite of about 300 asteroids with…
The field of asteroid thermophysical modeling has experienced an extraordinary growth in the last ten years, as new thermal infrared data became available for hundreds of thousands of asteroids. The infrared emission of asteroids depends on…
It is now becoming widely accepted that photon recoil forces from the asymmetric reflection and thermal re-radiation of absorbed sunlight are, together with collisions and gravitational forces, primary mechanisms governing the dynamical and…
The rapid accumulation of thermal infrared observations and shape models of asteroids has led to increased interest in thermophysical modeling. Most of these infrared observations are unresolved. We consider what fraction of an asteroid's…
Thermophysical Models (TPMs), which have proven to be a powerful tool in the interpretation of the infrared emission of asteroid surfaces, typically make use of a priori obtained shape models and spin axes for use as input boundary…
Results from the TESS mission showed that previous studies strngly underestimated the number of slow rotators, revealing the importance of studying those asteroids. For most slowly rotating asteroids (P > 12), no spin and shape model is…
Thermal inertia estimates are available for a limited number of a few hundred objects, and the results are practically solely based on thermophysical modeling (TPM). We present a novel thermal inertia estimation method, Asteroid Thermal…
In order to obtain the substantial information about the surface physics and thermal property of the target asteroid (162173) 1999 JU3, which will be visited by Hayabusa 2 in a sample return mission, with the Advanced Thermal Physical Model…
We present new thermophysical model (TPM) fits of 1,847 asteroids, deriving thermal inertia, diameter, and Bond and visible geometric albedo. We use thermal flux measurements obtained by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE; Wright…
The Yarkovsky (orbital drift) and YORP (spin state change) effects play important roles in the dynamical and physical evolution of asteroids. Thermophysical modelling of these observed effects, and of thermal-infrared observations, allows a…
Recent discoveries show that asteroids spinning in less than a few minutes undergo sizeable semi-major-axis drifts, possibly driven by the Yarkovsky effect. Analytical formulas can match these drifts only if very low thermal inertia is…
The Yarkovsky effect is a thermal process acting upon the orbits of small celestial bodies, which can cause these orbits to slowly expand or contract with time. The effect is subtle (da/dt ~ 10^-4 au/My for a 1 km diameter object) and is…
Non-resolved thermal infrared observations enable studies of thermal and physical properties of asteroid surfaces provided the shape and rotational properties of the target are well determined via thermo-physical models. We used…