ASTEROID SECULAR DYNAMICS: CERES’ FINGERPRINT IDENTIFIED

Habitability Potential of Ceres, a Warm Icy Body in the Asteroid Belt

Large, low-density C-type asteroids are abundant in the main belt. The most prominent of these objects is the dwarf planet Ceres, which presents an advanced stage of evolution. Ceres is almost twice as large as Enceladus, and both objects contain more than 50% of water in volume [1]. Although asteroids cannot benefit from tidal heating like outer planet satellites, their proximity to the Sun pr...

Spacecraft Dynamics near a Binary Asteroid

We study a simple model for an asteroid pair, namely a planar system consisting of a rigid body and a sphere. This model is interesting because it is one of the simplest that captures the coupling between rotational and translational dynamics. By assuming that the binary is in a relative equilibria of the system, we construct a model for the motion of a spacecraft about this asteroid pair witho...

Gauss’s Method for Secular Dynamics, Softened

We show that the algorithm proposed by Gauss to compute the secular evolution of gravitationally interacting Keplerian rings extends naturally to softened gravitational interactions. The resulting tool is ideal for the study of the secular dynamical evolution of nearly Keplerian systems such as stellar clusters surrounding black holes in galactic nuclei, cometary clouds, or planetesimal discs. ...

Three-dimensional Orbital Evolution of Asteroid Due to the Sweeping Secular

Secular resonance sweeping of the main asteroid belt during planet migration

We calculate the eccentricity excitation of asteroids produced by the sweeping ν6 secular resonance during the epoch of planetesimal-driven giant planet migration in the early history of the solar system. We derive analytical expressions for the magnitude of the eccentricity change and its dependence on the sweep rate and on planetary parameters; the ν6 sweeping leads to either an increase or a...