Related papers: Ejecta from the DART-produced active asteroid Dimo…
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 show indications they have undergone impacts with meteoroid particles having radii between 0.01 m and 1 m. During such impacts, small dust grains will be ejected at the impact site. The possibility of these dust grains (with…
Observed planetary debris in white dwarf atmospheres predominately originate from the destruction of small bodies on highly eccentric ($>0.99$) orbits. Despite their importance, these minor planets have coupled physical and orbital…
General-relativistic simulations of binary neutron star mergers with viscosity reveal a new outflow mechanism operating in unequal mass binaries on dynamical timescales and enabled by turbulent viscosity. These "viscous-dynamical" ejecta…
In 2029, the near-Earth asteroid (99942) Apophis approaches the Earth within six Earth radii. This opportunity is one of the rarest natural experiments that we can use to better characterize a small body through telescopic observations and…
Although discs of dust and gas have been observed orbiting white dwarfs, the origin of this circumstellar matter is uncertain. We hypothesize that the in-situ breakup of small bodies such as asteroids spun to fission during the giant branch…
Tumbling asteroids belong to a small group of objects, whose angular velocity vector is unaligned with any of its principal axes of inertia. This leads to challenging efforts to model the trajectory of any spacecraft designed to orbit these…
The question of whether asteroid ejecta can enter stable orbits about the parent body is examined.
The gravitational instability model of planet/brown dwarf formation proposes that protostellar discs can fragment into objects with masses above a few Jupiter masses at large semimajor axis. Tidal downsizing may reduce both the object mass…
In the near-Earth asteroid population, binary and triple systems have been discovered with mutual orbits that have significant eccentricities as well as large semi-major axes. All known systems with eccentric orbits and all widely-separated…
Debris disc analysis and modelling provide crucial information about the structure and the processes at play in extrasolar planetary systems. In binary systems, this issue is more complex because the disc should in addition respond to the…
With laboratory experiments we investigate the ejecta of low-velocity (~m/s) impacts into multi-scale granular media and compare them against ejecta from impacts into mono-scale media. Impacts are into a 50 cm diameter galvanized washtub…
We define a set of procedures to numerically study the fate of ejecta produced by the impact of an artificial projectile with the aim of deflecting an asteroid. Here we develop a simplified, idealized model of impact conditions that can be…
Asteroid 162173 Ryugu is a rubble-pile asteroid, whose top-shape is compatible with models of deformation by spin up. Rims of major craters on Ryugu have an east-west asymmetric profile; their western crater rims are sharp and tall, while…
In this fluid dynamics video, we present an experimental investigation of the shape of impact craters in granular materials. Complex crater shapes, including polygons, have been observed in many terrestrial planets as well as moons and…
Neutron star-black hole binaries are among the strongest sources of gravitational waves detectable by current observatories. They can also power bright electromagnetic signals (gamma-ray bursts, kilonovae), and may be a significant source…
Classical Be stars are well known to eject mass, but the details governing the initial distribution and evolution of this matter into a disk are poorly constrained by observations. By combining high-cadence spectroscopy with contemporaneous…
To deflect impact-trajectory of massive km^3 and spinning asteroid by a few terrestrial radius one need a large momentum exchange. The dragging of huge spinning bodies in space by external engine seems difficult or impossible. Our solution…
We examine the ability of impacts by Kuiper Belt debris to cause regolith exchange between objects in the Pluto system. We find that ejecta velocities from KB impacts are too low to escape from Pluto and Charon. However, ejecta can escape…
An asteroid spun up to its critical limit has unique surface mechanical properties that its gravity and the centrifugal force largely balance, creating a relaxation environment where low-energy events such as mass shedding may trigger…