Related papers: Successful Kinetic Impact into an Asteroid for Pla…
Context. Airless planetary objects have their surfaces covered by craters, and these can be used to study the characteristics of asteroid populations. Planetary surfaces present binary craters that are associated with the synchronous impact…
The question of whether to attempt deflections during planetary defence emergencies has been subject to considerable decision-making analysis (Schmidt 2018; SMPAG Ad-Hoc Working Group on Legal Issues 2020). Hypothetical situations usually…
Exploration of asteroids and comets can give insight into the origins of the solar system and can be instrumental in planetary defence and in-situ resource utilization (ISRU). Asteroids, due to their low gravity are a challenging target for…
The recent growing interest in small solar system bodies such as asteroids and comets for scientific inspection, exploitation of resources, and planetary defense reasons is pushing the development of innovative engineering solutions to…
We propose two algorithms to provide a full preliminary orbit of an Earth-orbiting object with a number of observations lower than the classical methods, such as those by Laplace and Gauss. The first one is the Virtual debris algorithm,…
Short-arc orbit determination is crucial when an asteroid is first discovered. In these cases usually the observations are so few that the differential correction procedure may not converge. We have developed an initial orbit computation…
Asteroids are leftover pieces from the era of planet formation that help us understand conditions in the early Solar System. Unlike larger planetary bodies that were subject to global thermal modification during and subsequent to their…
This paper presents a novel approach to the robust design of deflection actions for Near Earth Objects (NEO). In particular, the case of deflection by means of Solar-pumped Laser ablation is studied here in detail. The basic idea behind…
We introduce here our new approach to modeling particle cloud evolution off surface of small bodies (asteroids and comets), following the evolution of ejected particles requires dealing with various time and spatial scales, in an efficient,…
In the past two decades an increasing interest in discovering Near Earth Objects has been noted in the astronomical community. Dedicated surveys have been operated for data acquisition and processing, resulting in the present discovery of…
Among the currently known Near Earth Objects (NEOs), roughly 1400 are classified as being potentially hazardous asteroids. The recent Chelyabinsk event has shown that these objects can pose a real threat to mankind. We illustrate that high…
Dimorphos' oblate shape challenges formation models. Landslides on Didymos, induced by YORP effect, probably created a debris ring from which Dimorphos would have formed. Nonetheless, ring-derived satellites typically form with a prolate…
Given the spin state by Magnusson (1990), the shape model by Ostro et al. (2000), and the mass by Descamps et al. (2011), this paper evaluates a dynamically and structurally stable size of Asteroid (216) Kleopatra. In particular, we…
Planetary bodies such as asteroids, comets, and planetary moons are high-value science targets as they hold important information about the formation and evolution of our solar system. However, due to their low-gravity, variable sizes and…
Orbital debris is a pressing problem which presents a danger to global space operations and a barrier to continued development of the space economy and space infrastructure. As research continues regarding orbital debris, there is a need…
Context: Potentially hazardous asteroids (PHA) in Earth-crossing orbits pose a constant threat to life on Earth. Several mitigation methods have been proposed, and the most feasible technique appears to be the disintegration of the impactor…
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…
We have observed the Didymos-Dimorphos binary system with the MUSE integral field unit spectrograph mounted at the Very Large Telescope (VLT) pre and post-DART impact, and captured the ensuing ejecta cone, debris cloud, and tails at…
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…
In this article, theory-based analytical methodologies of astrophysics employed in the modern era are suitably operated alongside a test research-grade telescope to image and determine the orbit of a near-earth asteroid from original…