Related papers: PI -- Multimodal Planetary Defense
Deflecting an asteroid from an Earth impact trajectory requires only small velocity changes, typically of the order of microns per second, if done many years ahead of time. For this, a highly precise method of determining the need,…
Young and forming planetesimals experience impacts from particles present in a protostellar disk. Using crater scaling laws, we integrate ejecta distributions for oblique impacts. For impacts at 10 to 65 m/s, expected for impacts associated…
In recent years, nine small near-Earth asteroids were discovered a few hours before the collision with the Earth: these are about one meter in diameter objects that have all disintegrated in the atmosphere, generating bright fireballs…
There are several differences between the planetary entry of space vehicles and that of asteroids. In this work we do investigate the applicability of classical methods and approaches developed for debris analysis to asteroid entry. In…
We present recent improvements of the modeling of the disruption of strength dominated bodies using the Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) technique. The improvements include an updated strength model and a friction model, which are…
A method for asteroid deflection that makes use of a spacecraft moving back and forth on a segment of an appropriate Keplerian orbit about the asteroid is described and evaluated. It is shown that, on average, the spacecraft describing such…
The size distribution of asteroids and Kuiper belt objects in the solar system is difficult to reconcile with a bottom-up formation scenario due to the observed scarcity of objects smaller than $\sim$100 km in size. Instead, planetesimals…
We present a method for calculating precise distances to asteroids using only two nights of data from a single location --- far too little for an orbit --- by exploiting the angular reflex motion of the asteroids due to Earth's axial…
We propose and evaluate the feasibility of a new strategy to search for planets via microlensing. This new strategy is designed to detect planets in "wide" orbits, i.e., with orbital separation, $a$ greater than $\sim 1.5 R_E$. Planets in…
Modelling the formation of super-km-sized planetesimals by gravitational collapse of regions overdense in small particles requires numerical algorithms capable of handling simultaneously hydrodynamics, particle dynamics and particle…
Orbit-determination programs find the orbit solution that best fits a set of observations by minimizing the RMS of the residuals of the fit. For near-Earth asteroids, the uncertainty of the orbit solution may be compatible with trajectories…
Everyday thousands of meteoroids enter the Earth's atmosphere. The vast majority burn up harmlessly during the descent, but the larger objects survive, occasionally experiencing intense fragmentation events, and reach the ground. These…
Asteroids and meteorites provide key evidence on the formation of planetesimals in the Solar System. Asteroids are traditionally thought to form in a bottom-up process by coagulation within a population of initially km-scale planetesimals.…
Asteroids have called the attention of researchers around the world. Its chemical and physical composition can give us important information about the formation of our Solar System. In addition, the hypothesis of mining some of these…
Many asteroids that make close encounters with terrestrial planets are in a binary configuration. Here we calculate the relevant encounter timescales and investigate the effects of encounters on a binary's mutual orbit. We use a combination…
Current practice for asteroid close proximity maneuvers requires extremely accurate characterization of the environmental dynamics and precise spacecraft positioning prior to the maneuver. This creates a delay of several months between the…
We propose an adaptation of the semilinear algorithm for the prediction of the impact corridor on ground of an Earth-impacting asteroid. The proposed algorithm provides an efficient tool, able to reliably predict the impact regions at fixed…
We have performed a simulation of a next generation sky survey's (Pan-STARRS 1) efficiency for detecting Earth-impacting asteroids. The steady-state sky-plane distribution of the impactors long before impact is concentrated towards small…
A planetary system can undergo multiple episodes of intense dynamical activities throughout its life, resulting in the production of star-grazing planetesimals (or exocomets) and pollution of the host star. Such activity is especially…
The Planck mission, originally devised for cosmological studies, offers the opportunity to observe Solar System objects at millimetric and submillimetric wavelengths. We concentrate in this paper on the asteroids of the Main Belt. We intend…