Asteroid Systems: Binaries, Triples, and Pairs
Jean-Luc Margot, Petr Pravec, Patrick Taylor, Benoît Carry, Seth Jacobson
(Submitted on 31 Mar 2015)
In the past decade, the number of known binary near-Earth asteroids has more than quadrupled and the number of known large main belt asteroids with satellites has doubled. Half a dozen triple asteroids have been discovered, and the previously unrecognized populations of asteroid pairs and small main belt binaries have been identified. The current observational evidence confirms that small (<20 km) binaries form by rotational fission and establishes that the YORP effect powers the spin-up process. A unifying paradigm based on rotational fission and post-fission dynamics can explain the formation of small binaries, triples, and pairs. Large (>20 km) binaries with small satellites are most likely created during large collisions.
Comments:30 pages, 12 figures. Revised version of chapter for the book ASTEROIDS IV
Subjects:Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Cite as:arXiv:1504.00034 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:1504.00034v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
Submission history
From: Jean-Luc Margot
[v1] Tue, 31 Mar 2015 20:50:55 GMT (2903kb)
