The common trend of saltation particles on the surface of fast-rotating asteroids

¹ School of Aeronautic Science and Engineering, Beihang University, 37 Xueyuan Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100191, PR China
e-mail: yuyang.thu@icloud.com
² School of Aerospace Engineering, Tsinghua University, 30 Shuangqing Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100084, PR China

Received: 19 July 2022
Accepted: 1 March 2023

Abstract

Context. An asteroid spun up to its critical limit has unique surface mechanical properties that its gravity and the centrifugal force largely balance, creating a relaxation environment where low-energy events such as mass shedding may trigger subsequent long complex motion of an asteroid’s regolith grains. Exploring such an evolution process may provide key clues for understanding the early formation of multi-asteroid systems.

Aims. This paper investigates the complex evolution process of loose particles becoming triggered by shedding events and the dependency of their dynamical propagation on the contact mechanical properties of the asteroid surface.

Methods. We present a numerical model for tracking the trajectory of a shed particle that considers the collision between the particle and the surface of an asteroid. Monte Carlo simulations are performed to reflect the statistical behavior of shed particles. We also introduce zero-velocity surfaces to our data-based analysis in order to reveal the intrinsic invariance of the evolutionary processes. We used the average mechanical energy of the particle cloud to check the connection between contact property and the temporal-spatial distribution of the shed particles.

Results. We sketch a common evolutionary path of the particle in the vicinity of a fast-rotating asteroid, that is, particles dislodged from the unstable region will eventually enter, through several collisions with the surface, non-return orbits that launch from the minimum geopotential area of the unstable region. The common trend is independent of any particular asteroid morphology, and all shed particles (no matter where they originate from) enter the same evolutionary path. We also find that the orbital energy of the particle cloud is statistically independent of the surface contact property, meaning that the collision coefficient of restitution is a nonsensitive parameter in the outward spreading process of the shed particles.