Related papers: Reaccumulation process after a catastrophic disrup…
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…
The implication of small amounts of cohesion within relatively small rubble pile asteroids is investigated with regard to their evolution under the persistent presence of the YORP effect. We find that below a characteristic size, which is a…
Many small bodies in the solar system are believed to be rubble piles, a collection of smaller elements separated by voids. We propose a model for the structure of a self-gravitating rubble pile. Static friction prevents its elements from…
Impacts between differentiated planetesimals are ubiquitous in protoplanetary discs and may mix materials from the core, mantle, and crust of planetesimals, thus forming stony-iron meteorites. The surface composition of the asteroid (16)…
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 a novel implementation of a soft sphere, discrete elements code to simulate the dynamics of self-gravitating granular materials. The code is used to study the outcome of sub-sonic collisions between self-gravitating rubble piles…
Metal-rich asteroids and iron meteorites are considered core remnants of differentiated planetesimals and or products of oxygen-depleted accretion. Investigating the origins of iron-rich planetesimals could provide key insights into planet…
We present a series of numerical simulations using a shock physics smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) code, investigating energetic impacts on small celestial bodies characterised by diverse internal structures, ranging from weak and…
Atmospheric heavy elements have been observed in more than a quarter of white dwarfs (WDs) at different cooling ages, indicating ongoing accretion of asteroidal material, whilst only a few per cent of the WDs possess a dust disk, and all…
Over one quarter of white dwarfs contain observable metallic debris from the breakup of exo-asteroids. Understanding the physical and orbital history of this debris would enable us to self-consistently link planetary system formation and…
Asteroid (16) Psyche is notable for the largest M-type asteroid and has the high radar albedo among the main-belt asteroids. The object is likely a mixture of metal and silicates because of its lower bulk density than metallic materials and…
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…
The moniker rubble pile is typically applied to all solar system bodies with Diameter between 200m and 10km - where in this size range there is an abundance of evidence that nearly every object is bound primarily by self-gravity with…
Shock metamorphism in ordinary chondrites allows for reconstructing impact events between asteroids in the main asteroid belt. Shock-darkening of ordinary chondrites occurs at the onset of complete shock melting of the rock (>70 GPa) or…
The members of asteroid families have various shapes. We investigate the origin of their shapes by high-resolution impact simulations for catastrophic disruptions using a Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics code. Collisional remnants produced…
An asteroid pair consists of two unbound objects with almost identical heliocentric orbital elements that were formed when a single "rubble pile" asteroid failed to remain bound against an increasing rotation rate. Models suggest that the…
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…
The pathway to forming the iron-rich planet Mercury remains mysterious. Mercury's core makes up 70% of the planetary mass, which implies a significant enrichment of iron relative to silicates, while its mantle is strongly depleted in…
Mesosiderites are a type of stony-iron meteorites composed of a mixture of silicates and Fe-Ni metals. The mesosiderite silicates and metals are considered to have originated from the crust and metal core, respectively, of a differentiated…
The WD 1145+017 system shows irregular transit features that are consistent with the tidal disruption of differentiated asteroids with bulk densities $< 4$ g cm$^{-3}$ and bulk masses $\lesssim 10^{21}$ kg (Veras et al., 2017;…