Orbital stability of high inclination asteroids

Orbital Stability Zones about Asteroids

We have numerically investigated a three-body problem consisting of the Sun, an asteroid, and an infinitesimal particle initially placed about the asteroid. We assume that the asteroid has the following properties: a circular heliocentric orbit at R -2.55 AU, an asteroid/Sun mass ratio of/~ -5 x 10-12, and a spherical shape with radius R A -100 km; these values are close to those of the minor p...

High Inclination Planets and Asteroids in Multistellar Systems

The Kozai mechanism often destabilises high inclination orbits. It couples changes in the eccentricity and inclination, and drives high inclination, circular orbits to low inclination, eccentric orbits. In a recent study of the dynamics of planetesimals in the quadruple star system HD98800 (Verrier & Evans 2008), there were significant numbers of stable particles in circumbinary polar orbits ab...

Orbital Stability Zones about Asteroids II. The Destabilizing Effects of Eccentric Orbits and of Solar Radiation

The gravitational effects of the Sun on a particle orbiting another massive body which itself moves on a circular path around the Sun have been studied extensively. Most recently, D. P. Hamilton and J. A. Burns (1991, Zcarus 92, 118-131) characterized the size and shape of a stability zone around an asteroid on a circular heliocentric orbit within which material could remain bound for an extend...

Stability of the Trojan asteroids

The Orbital and Absolute Magnitude Distributions of Main Belt Asteroids

We have developed a model-independent analytical method for debiasing the fourdimensional (a, e, i,H) distribution obtained in any asteroid observation program and have applied the technique to results obtained with the 0.9m Spacewatch Telescope. From 1992 to 1995 Spacewatch observed ∼ 3740 deg2 near the ecliptic and made observations of more than 60,000 asteroids to a limiting magnitude of V∼2...