Constraining the interiors of asteroids through close encounters
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Knowledge of the interior density distribution of an asteroid can reveal its composition and constrain its evolutionary history. However, most asteroid observational techniques are not sensitive to interior properties. We in...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Oxford University Press (OUP)
2023
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/148060 |
| _version_ | 1826200566658760704 |
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| author | Dinsmore, Jack T de Wit, Julien |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences Dinsmore, Jack T de Wit, Julien |
| author_sort | Dinsmore, Jack T |
| collection | MIT |
| description | <jats:title>Abstract</jats:title>
<jats:p>Knowledge of the interior density distribution of an asteroid can reveal its composition and constrain its evolutionary history. However, most asteroid observational techniques are not sensitive to interior properties. We investigate the interior constraints accessible through monitoring variations in angular velocity during a close encounter. We derive the equations of motion for a rigid asteroid’s orientation and angular velocity to arbitrary order and use them to generate synthetic angular velocity data for a representative asteroid on a close Earth encounter. We develop a toolkit AIME (Asteroid Interior Mapping from Encounters) which reconstructs asteroid density distribution from these data, and we perform injection-retrieval tests on these synthetic data to assess AIME’s accuracy and precision. We also perform a sensitivity analysis to asteroid parameters (e.g. asteroid shape and orbital elements), observational set-up (e.g. measurement precision and cadence), and the mapping models used. We find that high precision in rotational period estimates (≲ 0.27 seconds) are necessary for each cadence, and that low perigees (≲ 18 Earth radii) are necessary to resolve large-scale density non-uniformities with uncertainties of $\sim 0.1{{\%}}$ of the local density under some models.</jats:p> |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T11:38:22Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/148060 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T11:38:22Z |
| publishDate | 2023 |
| publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1480602023-02-15T03:29:56Z Constraining the interiors of asteroids through close encounters Dinsmore, Jack T de Wit, Julien Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences <jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Knowledge of the interior density distribution of an asteroid can reveal its composition and constrain its evolutionary history. However, most asteroid observational techniques are not sensitive to interior properties. We investigate the interior constraints accessible through monitoring variations in angular velocity during a close encounter. We derive the equations of motion for a rigid asteroid’s orientation and angular velocity to arbitrary order and use them to generate synthetic angular velocity data for a representative asteroid on a close Earth encounter. We develop a toolkit AIME (Asteroid Interior Mapping from Encounters) which reconstructs asteroid density distribution from these data, and we perform injection-retrieval tests on these synthetic data to assess AIME’s accuracy and precision. We also perform a sensitivity analysis to asteroid parameters (e.g. asteroid shape and orbital elements), observational set-up (e.g. measurement precision and cadence), and the mapping models used. We find that high precision in rotational period estimates (≲ 0.27 seconds) are necessary for each cadence, and that low perigees (≲ 18 Earth radii) are necessary to resolve large-scale density non-uniformities with uncertainties of $\sim 0.1{{\%}}$ of the local density under some models.</jats:p> 2023-02-14T19:12:34Z 2023-02-14T19:12:34Z 2022 2023-02-14T18:50:18Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/148060 Dinsmore, Jack T and de Wit, Julien. 2022. "Constraining the interiors of asteroids through close encounters." Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. en 10.1093/MNRAS/STAC2866 Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf Oxford University Press (OUP) arXiv |
| spellingShingle | Dinsmore, Jack T de Wit, Julien Constraining the interiors of asteroids through close encounters |
| title | Constraining the interiors of asteroids through close encounters |
| title_full | Constraining the interiors of asteroids through close encounters |
| title_fullStr | Constraining the interiors of asteroids through close encounters |
| title_full_unstemmed | Constraining the interiors of asteroids through close encounters |
| title_short | Constraining the interiors of asteroids through close encounters |
| title_sort | constraining the interiors of asteroids through close encounters |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/148060 |
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