Asteroid Systems: Binaries, Triples, and Pairs

Abstract

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.

31 pages, 12 figures. Chapter in the book ASTEROIDS IV (in press)

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• Physical, spectral, and dynamical properties of asteroid (107) Camilla and its satellites
• Evidence for differentiation of the most primitive small bodies
• CASTAway: An Asteroid Main Belt Tour and Survey
• Dynamical origin of Dimorphos from fast spinning Didymos
• Size-dependent modification of asteroid family Yarkovsky V-shapes
• Extreme eccentricities of triple systems: Analytic results
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• On the Secondary's Rotation in Synchronous Binary Asteroid
• Light curves of ten Centaurs from K2 measurements
• Interpretations of family size distributions: The Datura example
• Dynamics of asteroid systems post rotational fission
• Identification of asteroids using the Virtual Observatory: the WFCAM Transit Survey
• Shape model and rotation acceleration of (1685) Toro and (85989) 1999 JD6 from optical observations
• Equilibrium rotation states of doubly synchronous binary asteroids
• Development of the SPECULOOS exoplanet search project
• A pair of Jovian Trojans at the L4 Lagrange point
• Asteroid models from generalised projections: Essential facts for asteroid modellers and geometric inverse problem solvers
• Astrometric detection of binary asteroids
• A dynamical dichotomy in large binary asteroids
• Probing the Dark Solar System: Detecting Binary Asteroids with a Space-Based Interferometric Asteroid Explorer
• Analysis of the dynamics of a spacecraft in the vicinity of an asteroid binary system with equal masses
• Orbits of very distant asteroid satellites
• Close-to-fission dumbbell Jupiter-Trojan (17365) Thymbraeus
• Main Belt Asteroid Histories: Simulations of erosion, cratering, catastrophic dispersions, spins, binaries and tumblers
• The possible dual nature of the asteroid (12499) 1998 FR47
• Direct contact binary planetesimal formation from gravitational collapse
• The Onset of Chaos in Permanently Deformed Binaries from Spin-Orbit and Spin-Spin Coupling