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Non-gravitational forces acting on small bodies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 March 2006

Miroslav Brož
Affiliation:
Institute of Astronomy, Charles University, Prague, V Holešovičkách 2, 18000 Prague 8, Czech Republic email: vokrouhl@mbox.cesnet.cz, mira@sirrah.troja.mff.cuni.cz, capek@sirrah.troja.mff.cuni.cz
D. Vokrouhlický
Affiliation:
Institute of Astronomy, Charles University, Prague, V Holešovičkách 2, 18000 Prague 8, Czech Republic email: vokrouhl@mbox.cesnet.cz, mira@sirrah.troja.mff.cuni.cz, capek@sirrah.troja.mff.cuni.cz
W.F. Bottke
Affiliation:
Southwest Research Institute, 1050, Walnut St., Suite 400, Boulder, CO-80302, USA email: bottke@boulder.swri.edu, davidn@boulder.swri.edu
D. Nesvorný
Affiliation:
Southwest Research Institute, 1050, Walnut St., Suite 400, Boulder, CO-80302, USA email: bottke@boulder.swri.edu, davidn@boulder.swri.edu
A. Morbidelli
Affiliation:
Observatoire de Nice, Dept. Cassiopee, BP 4229, 06304 Nice Cedex 4, France email: morby@obs-nice.fr
D. Čapek
Affiliation:
Institute of Astronomy, Charles University, Prague, V Holešovičkách 2, 18000 Prague 8, Czech Republic email: vokrouhl@mbox.cesnet.cz, mira@sirrah.troja.mff.cuni.cz, capek@sirrah.troja.mff.cuni.cz
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Abstract

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Non-gravitational perturbations, regardless being many orders of magnitude weaker than gravity, hold keys to fully understand the evolution of small Solar System bodies. This is because individual bodies, or their entire groups, manifest traces of a long-term accumulated changes by these effects.

For meteoroids and small asteroids in the 10 cm–10 km size range, the principal non-gravitational force and torque arise from an anisotropic thermal emission of the absorbed solar radiation. Related perturbations of the orbital and rotational motion are called the Yarkovsky and YORP effects.

We review the most important Yarkovsky- and YORP-driven processes, in the Main Asteroid Belt. These include: steady and size-dependent semimajor axis drift, secular changes of rotational period and obliquity, efficient transport towards low-order resonances, interaction with weaker higher-order resonances, captures in secular and spin-orbit resonances.

Many independent observations can be naturally interpreted in the framework of Yarkov-sky/YORP models, like cosmic ray exposure ages of meteorites, current population and size-distribution of near-Earth objects, the existence of unstable resonant asteroids or the structure of asteroid families.

Type
Contributed Papers
Copyright
© 2006 International Astronomical Union