Dust Grain Orbital Behavior Around Ceres
Physics, abstract
physics/0308075
From: Amy Skaggs <amy_skaggs@baylor.edu>
Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2003 16:13:06 GMT (275kb)
Dust Grain Orbital Behavior Around Ceres
Authors:
R. Nazzario,
T. W. Hyde,
L. Barge
Comments: 8 pages, Presented at COSPAR ’03
Report-no: CASPER-03-06
Subj-class: Space Physics
Many asteroids show indications they have undergone impacts with meteoroid
particles having radii between 0.01 m and 1 m. During such impacts, small dust
grains will be ejected at the impact site. The possibility of these dust grains
(with radii greater than 2.2×10-6 m) forming a halo around a spherical asteroid
(such as Ceres) is investigated using standard numerical integration
techniques. The orbital elements, positions, and velocities are determined for
particles with varying radii taking into account both the influence of gravity,
radiation pressure, and the interplanetary magnetic field (for charged
particles). Under the influence of these forces it is found that dust grains
(under the appropriate conditions) can be injected into orbits with lifetimes
in excess of one year. The lifetime of the orbits is shown to be highly
dependent on the location of the ejection point as well as the angle between
the surface normal and the ejection path. It is also shown that only particles
ejected within 10 degrees relative to the surface tangential survive more than
a few hours and that the longest-lived particles originate along a line
perpendicular to the Ceres-Sun line.
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