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The main belt asteroids 458271 (2010 UM26) and 2010 RN221 share almost identical orbital elements and currently appear as comoving objects 30 arcsec apart in the plane of the sky. They are products of the breakup of a parent object, or the…
The erosion of lunar soil by rocket exhaust plumes is investigated experimentally. This has identified the diffusion-driven flow in the bulk of the sand as an important but previously unrecognized mechanism for erosion dynamics. It has also…
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…
Context. The YORP effect is the thermal torque generated by radiation from the surface of an asteroid. The effect is sensitive to surface topology, including small-scale roughness, boulders, and craters. Aims: The aim of this paper is to…
Pulsars show a steady decrease in their rotational frequency, occasionally interrupted by sudden spin-ups called glitches, whose physical origin is still a mystery. One suggested explanation for at least the small glitches are starquakes,…
We describe gravitational stirring models of planetary debris disks using a new multi-annulus planetesimal evolution code. The current code includes gravitational stirring and dynamical friction; future studies will include coagulation,…
Itokawa particles, which are the recovered samples from the S-complex asteroid 25143 Itokawa by the Hayabusa spacecraft, demonstrate that S-complex asteroids are parent bodies of ordinary chondrite meteorites. Furthermore, they clarify that…
Porosity is a key characteristic of the regolith on the surface of small bodies. The porosity of the regolith on the surface of asteroids is changed by applied pressure, and the relationship between pressure and porosity depends on the…
Turbulent coagulation in protoplanetary disks is known to operate on timescale far shorter than the lifetime of the disk. In the absence of mechanisms that replenish the small dust grain population, protoplanetary disks would rapidly lose…
Constraining mixing processes and chemical composition is a central problem in stellar physics as their impact on stellar age determinations leads to biases in our studies of stellar evolution, galactic history and exoplanetary systems. In…
We analyze images of a rock on Ryugu acquired in situ by MASCam, camera of the MASCOT lander, with the aim of identifying possible carbonaceous chondrite (CC) analogs. The rock's reflectance ($r_{\rm F} = 0.034 \pm 0.003$ at phase angle…
C-type asteroids, such as asteroid (162173) Ryugu, may have played a key role in delivering light elements to early Earth. Nitrogen (N)-bearing molecules have been chemically identified in some Ryugu grains, and based on the faint 3.06 um…
Two primitive near Earth asteroids, (101955) Bennu and (162173) Ryugu, will be visited by a spacecraft with the aim of returning samples back to Earth. Since these objects are believed to originate in the inner main belt primitive…
Physical studies of asteroids depend on an availability of lightcurve data. Targets that are easy to observe and analyse naturally have more data available, so their synodic periods are confirmed from multiple sources. Also, thanks to…
We have performed detailed dynamical modeling of the structure of a faint dust band observed in coadded IRAS data at an ecliptic latitude of 17$^{\circ}$ that convincingly demonstrates that it is the result of a relatively recent…
The surface conditions of terrestrial bodies strongly reflect their geological evolutionary processes and vary among various terrestrial bodies. This diversity is attributed to variations in the timescales of boulder formation through…
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,…
Cratering on small bodies is crucial for the collision cascade and also contributes to the ejection of dust particles into interplanetary space. A crater cavity forms against the mechanical strength of the surface, gravitational…
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…
The impact response of rubble-pile asteroids is essential for both elucidating their formation and evolution history and evaluating the efficacy of impact defense strategies. Although state-of-the-art numerical simulations have allowed for…