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In recent years, understanding asteroids has shifted from light worlds to geological worlds by exploring modern spacecraft and advanced radar and telescopic surveys. However, flyby in 2029 will be an opportunity to conduct an internal…
Satellites of asteroids have been discovered in nearly every known small body population, and a remarkable aspect of the known satellites is the diversity of their properties. They tell a story of vast differences in formation and evolution…
The number of binary asteroids in the near-Earth region might be significantly higher than expected. While Bottke and Melosh (1996) suggested that about 15% of the NEAs are binaries, as indicated from the frequency of double craters, and…
We compute the accretion efficiency of small solids, with radii 1 cm $\le$ Rs $\le$ 10 m, on planets embedded in gaseous disks. Planets have masses 3 $\le$ Mp $\le$ 20 Earth masses (Me) and orbit within 10 AU of a solar-mass star. Disk…
The NEAT (Nearby Earth Astrometric Telescope) mission is a proposition submitted to ESA for its 2010 call for M-size mission. The main scientific goal is to detect and characterize planetary systems in an exhaustive way down to 1 Earth mass…
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…
Automated asteroid detection routines set requirements on the number of detections, signal-to-noise ratio, and the linearity of the expected motion in order to balance completeness, reliability, and time delay after data acquisition when…
We analyse the potential of the electric solar wind sail for solar system space missions. Applications studied include fly-by missions to terrestrial planets (Venus, Mars and Phobos, Mercury) and asteroids, missions based on non-Keplerian…
The bulk density of an asteroid informs us about its interior structure and composition. To constrain the bulk density one needs an estimate for the mass of the asteroid. The mass is estimated by analyzing an asteroid's gravitational…
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…
Asteroid diameters are traditionally difficult to estimate. When a direct measurement of the diameter cannot be made through either occultation or direct radar observation, the most common method is to approximate the diameter from infrared…
We report results of a four-year survey using Electron Multiplied Charged Coupled Device (EMCCD) cameras recording 34761 two-station video meteor events complete to a limiting magnitude of +6. The survey goal was to characterize probable…
Advances in robotics and additive manufacturing have become game-changing for the prospects of space industry. It has become feasible to bootstrap a self-sustaining, self-expanding industry at reasonably low cost. Simple modeling was…
This study evaluates a technique for determining the mass of a potentially hazardous asteroid from a high-speed flyby in the context of a rapid reconnaissance planetary defense scenario. We consider a host spacecraft that dispenses a small…
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,…
Studies on Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) throw light on discoveries, identification, orbit prediction and civil alert capabilities, including potential asteroid impact hazards. Due to various new observational programs, the discovery rate of…
The Near Earth Object Surveyor mission has a requirement to find two-thirds of the potentially hazardous asteroids larger than 140 meters in size. In order to determine the mission's expected progress toward this goal during design and…
Knowledge of the interior density distribution of an asteroid can reveal its composition and constrain its evolutionary history. However, most asteroid observational techniques are not sensitive to interior properties. We investigate the…
We study the dynamical and collisional evolution of Near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) in Main Belt-crossing orbits (NEACs). We select NEACs with H < 18 and integrate their orbits for 1e7 yr with N-body simulations. Objects are grouped by initial…
Understanding the dynamical evolution of asteroids through the secular Yarkovsky effect requires the determination of many physical properties, including the rotation period. We propose a method aimed at obtaining a robust determination of…