Related papers: Axisymmetric landslides on small planetary bodies
Recent space missions have provided substantial evidence of regolith movement on the surfaces of near Earth asteroids. To investigate this phenomenon, we present a continuum-based model that describes regolith motion on nearly spherical…
Conditions for regolith landslides to occur on spinning, gravitating spheroidal asteroids and their aftermath are studied. These conditions are developed by application of classical granular mechanics stability analysis to the asteroid…
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…
The regolith-covered surfaces of asteroids preserve records of geophysical processes that have occurred both at their surfaces and sometimes also in their interiors. As a result of the unique micro-gravity environment that these bodies…
Most major planetary bodies in the solar system rotate in the same direction as their orbital motion: their spin is prograde. Theoretical studies to explain the direction as well as the magnitude of the spin vector have had mixed success.…
More than a half of asteroids in the main belt have irregular shapes with the ratios of the minor to major axis lengths less than 0.6. One of the mechanisms to create such shapes is collisions between asteroids. The relationship between…
The rotational distribution of asteroids as a function of their size is used {as a diagnostic of} their physical properties and evolution. Recent photometric surveys from the Gaia mission, allowing observation of asteroids with long spin…
The migration of cohesive regolith on the surface of an otherwise monolithic or strong asteroid is studied using theoretical and simulation models. The theory and simulations show that under an increasing spin rate (such as due to the YORP…
The overall shape, internal structure and surface morphology of small bodies such as asteroids and comets are determined to a large degree by the last global-scale impact or disruption event. Depending on the specific energy, impacts lead…
Many asteroids are rubble piles with irregular shapes. While the irregular shapes of large asteroids may be attributed to collisional events, those of small asteroids may result from not only impact events but also rotationally induced…
While the number of asteroids with known shapes has drastically increased over the past few years, little is known on the the time-evolution of shapes and the underlying physical processes. Here we propose an averaged abrasion model based…
Asteroids are frequently colliding with small projectiles. Although each individual small collision is not very important, their cumulative effect can substantially change topography and also the overall shape of an asteroid. We run…
This paper studies the long-term migration of disturbed regolith materials on the surface of Solar System small bodies from the viewpoint of nonlinear dynamics. We propose an approximation model for secular mass movement, which combines the…
We investigate the problem of determining the shape of a rotating celestial object - e.g., a comet or an asteroid - under its own gravitational field. More specifically, we consider an object symmetric with respect to one axis - such as a…
Our knowledge of the strengths of small bodies in the Solar System is limited by our poor understanding of their internal structures, and this, in turn, clouds our understanding of the formation and evolution of these bodies. Observations…
Solar system small bodies come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, which are achieved following very individual evolutional paths through billions of years. This paper focuses on the reshaping process of rubble-pile asteroids driven by…
We present a framework to study regolith segregation on rubble-pile asteroids (self-gravitating granular aggregates) due to seismic shaking induced by impacts sustained during their lifetimes. We first relate the amplitude and frequency of…
We present the results of relativistic smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations of tidal disruptions of stars by rotating supermassive black holes, for a wide range of impact parameters and black hole spins. For deep encounters, we find…
Global scale impacts modify the physical or thermal state of a substantial fraction of a target asteroid. Specific effects include accretion, family formation, reshaping, mixing and layering, shock and frictional heating, fragmentation,…
Surface shedding of an asteroid is a failure mode where surface materials fly off due to strong centrifugal forces beyond the critical spin period, while the internal structure does not deform significantly. This paper proposes a possible…