Mathematics – Probability
Scientific paper
Oct 2010
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010dps....42.1302g&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #42, #13.02; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.1052
Mathematics
Probability
Scientific paper
We present the first debiased size-frequency and orbit distributions for a steady-state population of temporary-captured, natural Earth satellites (NES) excluding the Moon. We use orbital integrations to estimate the capture probability as a function of orbital elements and utilize the steady-state near-Earth-object (NEO) model by Bottke et al. (2002) to estimate the steady-state population of NESs.
For much of the 20th century NESs other than the Moon were not discussed in their own right but mentioned in the published literature only as a population producing meteors that travel far in the Earth's atmosphere or as a population explaining shallow meteorite impacts. Only during the last two decades has a couple of these objects been detected in space; 1991 VG and 2006 RH120. The origin and evolution of 1991 VG, e.g., whether it is a man-made or a natural object, can be debated, but 2006 RH120 is certainly natural with an absolute magnitude H of about 29.9. To gain understanding of this little studied and barely detected population's origin and evolution, we try to answer questions such as: At any instant, how many objects are in temporary capture as a function of their size? What are the characteristics of their pre- capture geocentric trajectories and heliocentric orbits? What is the typical duration of the temporary capture? How many orbits do NESs typically complete around the Earth? What are the characteristics of their geocentric orbits?
We anticipate that the interest in this small and nearby population will increase in the future as NESs are easily accessible targets for proposed NEO sample-return missions. Their typically small sizes could allow us to bring back an entire asteroid with the benefit that, e.g., microscopic surface or near-surface effects such as space weathering and lightscattering could be studied on a pristine body in ground-based laboratories.
Granvik Mikael
Jedicke Robert
Vaubaillon Jeremie
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