Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Pravec, P.
• Harris, A.W.
• Scheirich, P.
• Kušnirák, P.
• Šarounová, L.
• Hergenrother, C.W.
• Mottola, S.
• Hicks, M.D.
• Masi, G.
• Krugly, Yu.N.
• Shevchenko, V.G.
• Nolan, M.C.
• Howell, E.S.
• Kaasalainen, M.
• Galád, A.
• Brown, P.
• DeGraff, D.R.
• Lambert, J.V.
• Cooney, W.R.
• Foglia, S.

Titel

Tumbling asteroids

Ist Teil von

• Icarus (New York, N.Y. 1962), 2005, Vol.173 (1), p.108-131

Ort / Verlag

San Diego, CA: Elsevier Inc

Erscheinungsjahr

2005

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• We present both a review of earlier data and new results on non-principal axis rotators (tumblers) among asteroids. Among new tumblers found, the best data we have are for 2002 TD 60, 2000 WL 107, and (54789) 2001 MZ 7—each of them shows a lightcurve with two frequencies (full terms with linear combinations of the two frequencies are present in the lightcurve). For 2002 TD 60, we have constructed a physical model of the NPA rotation. Other recent objects which have been found to be likely tumblers based on their lightcurves that do not fit with a single periodicity are 2002 NY 40, (16067) 1999 RH 27, and (5645) 1990 SP. We have done a statistical analysis of the present sample of the population of NPA rotators. It appears that most asteroids larger than ∼ 0.4   km with estimated damping timescales (Harris, 1994, Icarus 107, 209) of 4.5 byr and longer are NPA rotators. The statistic of two short-period tumblers ( D = 0.04 and 0.4 km) with non-zero tensile strength suggests that for them the quantity μ Q / T , where μ is the mechanical rigidity, Q is the elastic dissipation factor, and T is a spin excitation age (i.e., a time elapsed since the last significant spin excitation event), is greater by two to four orders of magnitude than the larger, likely rubble-pile tumblers. Among observational conditions and selection effects affecting detections of NPA rotations, there is a bias against detection of low-amplitude (small elongation) tumblers.