Scaling forces to asteroid surfaces: The role of cohesion

By Daniel J. Scheeres, C. Hartzell, Diego Paul Sánchez Lana, M. Swift. 2010

308 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The scaling of physical forces to the extremely low ambient gravitational acceleration regimes found on the surfaces of small asteroids is performed. Resulting from this, it is found that van der Waals cohesive forces between regolith grains on asteroid surfaces should be a dominant force and compete with particle weights and be greater, in general, than electrostatic and solar radiation pressure forces. Based on this scaling, we interpret previous experiments performed on cohesive powders in the terrestrial environment as being relevant for the understanding of processes on asteroid surfaces. The implications of these terrestrial experiments for interpreting observations of asteroid surfaces and macro-porosity are considered, and yield interpretations that differ from previously assumed processes for these environments. Based on this understanding, we propose a new model for the end state of small, rapidly rotating asteroids which allows them to be comprised of relatively fine regolith grains held together by van der Waals cohesive forces.

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/dbdc1b52da4b089e076c6ce4fb0dc95840c31418

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Citations in the corpus

Redistribution of particles across the nucleus of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (2015, methodology): “…been the first to consider erosion driven by cometary outgassing using formulations similar to those used to study saltation on Mars (Greeley & Iversen 1985) and, following Scheeres et al. (2010), also noted the importance of cohesive forces between particles on bodies with low surface gravity.”
Dynamics of rotationally fissioned asteroids: Source of observed small asteroid systems (2011, background): “100 m (Scheeres et al., 2010a) and the timescale for YORP effect induced rotational fission is too long for the largest size scales & 10 km.”
Static and dynamic angles of repose in loose granular materials under reduced gravity (2011, background): “In lower gravity cohesive forces may also become relatively more important, which affects granular movement, asteroid shape and the inference of the size and nature of the granular material that composes asteroids [Scheeres et al., 2010].”
Mercury’s Weather-Beaten Surface: Understanding Mercury in the Context of Lunar and Asteroidal Space Weathering Studies (2014, background): “…surface gravitational acceleration to sustain regolith processes similar to some of those on the Moon (Housen et al. 1979), whereas the smaller asteroids may lack well-developed regoliths of any type and are subject to processes peculiar to a microgravity environment (Scheeres et al. 2010).”