Induced fragmentation of asteroids during close encounters

Tester, Bryan and Vasile, Massimiliano; Majji, Manoranjan and Turner, James D. and Wawrzyniak, Geoff G. and Cerven, William Todd, eds. (2015) Induced fragmentation of asteroids during close encounters. In: Astrodynamics 2015. Advances in Astrnautical Sciences . American Astronautical Society, USA, pp. 3687-3700. ISBN 9780877036296

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Abstract

We consider the behaviour of rotating binary asteroids as they pass through Earth's Hill sphere, with primary interest in the effect the tidal force on the interaction between the two components of the binary and their post-encounter trajectories. We focus on contact binary asteroids bound by a regolith bridge, using both direct numerical simulation and analytical approaches to investigate the sensitivity of the system to different parameters. We find that the system is most sensitive to the angle between the binary pair and the orbital path, having a significant impact upon the energy change during a fragmentation event. We also give the results of some basic simulations of a deflection attempt on such an object.