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The cratering history of main belt asteroid (2867) Steins has been investigated using OSIRIS imagery acquired during the Rosetta flyby that took place on the 5th of September 2008. For this purpose, we applied current models describing the formation and evolution of main belt asteroids, that provide the rate and velocity distributions of impactors. These models coupled with appropriate crater scaling laws, allow the cratering history to be estimated. Hence, we derive Steins cratering retention age, namely the time lapsed since its formation or global surface reset. We also investigate the influence of various factors -like bulk structure and crater erasing- on the estimated age, which spans from a few hundred Myrs to more than 1Gyr, depending on the adopted scaling law and asteroid physical parameters. Moreover, a marked lack of craters smaller than about 0.6km has been found and interpreted as a result of a peculiar evolution of Steins cratering record, possibly related either to the formation of the 2.1km wide impact crater near the south pole or to YORP reshaping.
The European Space Agencys Rosetta spacecraft passed by the main belt asteroid (21) Lutetia the 10th July 2010. With its ~100km size, Lutetia is one of the largest asteroids ever imaged by a spacecraft. During the flyby, the on-board OSIRIS imaging s
Rampino & Caldeira (2015) carry out a circular spectral analysis (CSA) of the terrestrial impact cratering record over the past 260 million years (Ma), and suggest a ~26 Ma periodicity of impact events. For some of the impacts in that analysis, new a
Although a large number of astronomical craters are actually produced by the oblique impacts onto inclined surfaces, most of the laboratory experiments mimicking the impact cratering have been performed by the vertical impact onto a horizontal target
The Karma asteroid family is a group of primitive asteroids in the middle part of the main belt, just at the outer edge of the 3J:1A mean-motion resonance. We obtained the list of the family members with 317 asteroids and estimated that it was formed
The physical characterization of potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs) is important for impact hazard assessment and evaluating mitigation options. Close flybys of PHAs provide an opportunity to study their surface photometric and spectral propertie