Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Aug 2006
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006pmpa.conf....9l&link_type=abstract
2005: PAST MEETS PRESENT IN ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS. Proceedings of the 15th Portuguese National Meeting. Held 28-30 July 200
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Scientific paper
We have developed a simple model to study the collisional evolution of the spins of Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs). We find that the observed spins of KBOs larger than ~ 200 km cannot be explained by collisions, if the objects had no spin at the end of the primary growth phase. This suggests that large KBOs must have attained their spin rates very early in their evolution. If the accretion process was not entirely isotropic, and contributed angular momentum to the growing KBOs, we find that a ~ 10% asymmetry in the net angular momentum of accreted plan-etesimals would explain the observations. However, if the accreted planetesimals were comparable in size to the growing body, no anisotropy is required because the accretion of individual particles can produce significant spin changes.
Dominik Carsten
Kenyon Scott
Lacerda Pedro
Luu Jane
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