Jun 2006
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006dda....37.0202h&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DDA meeting #37, #2.02; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 38, p.666
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Scientific paper
There are now nearly 100 binary asteroids known. In the last year alone, 30 binary asteroids have been discovered, half of them by lightcurves showing eclipse events. Similar to eclipsing binary stars, such observations allow determination of orbit period and sizes and shapes of the primary and secondary relative to the orbital dimension. From these parameters one can estimate the mean density of the system, and a number of dynamical properties such as total specific angular momentum, tidal evolution time scales of spins and orbit, and precession frequencies of the orbit about the primary and of the solar induced "general precession" of the system. We have extracted parameters for all systems with enough observations to allow meaningful determinations. Some preliminary results include: (1) Binaries are roughly as prevalent among small main-belt asteroids as among Near-Earth Asteroids. (2) Most binaries are partially asynchronous, with the secondary synchronized to the orbit period, but the primary still spinning much faster. This is consistent with estimated tidal damping time scales. (3) Most systems have near the critical maximum angular momentum for a single "rubble pile" body, but not much more, and some less. Thus fission appears not to be a viable formation mechanism for all binaries, although near-critical spin rate seems to play a role. (4) Orbits of the secondaries are essentially in the equatorial plane of the primary. Since most primary spins are still fast, the satellites must have been formed into low inclination orbits. (5) Precession frequencies are in the range of the shorter resonance frequencies in the solar system (tens of thousands of years), thus resonance interactions can be expected to have altered spin orientations as systems evolved slowly by tidal friction or other processes. (6) Primaries are unusually spheroidal, which is probably necessary for stability of the binary once formed.
Harris Alan W.
Pravec Petr
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