Formation and Evolution of Binary Asteroids
Kevin J. Walsh, Seth A. Jacobson

TL;DR
This paper reviews the formation and evolution of binary asteroid systems, highlighting recent discoveries, observational advances, and theoretical models explaining their diverse properties and dynamical pathways over billions of years.
Contribution
It provides a comprehensive overview of recent observational data and theoretical insights into the formation and evolution mechanisms of binary asteroids.
Findings
Catalog of known binary systems increased from 33 to nearly 250.
Thermal forces can drive rotational disruption of small asteroids.
Long-term monitoring constrains dynamical evolution processes.
Abstract
Satellites of asteroids have been discovered in nearly every known small body population, and a remarkable aspect of the known satellites is the diversity of their properties. They tell a story of vast differences in formation and evolution mechanisms that act as a function of size, distance from the Sun, and the properties of their nebular environment at the beginning of Solar System history and their dynamical environment over the next 4.5 Gyr. The mere existence of these systems provides a laboratory to study numerous types of physical processes acting on asteroids and their dynamics provide a valuable probe of their physical properties otherwise possible only with spacecraft. Advances in understanding the formation and evolution of binary systems have been assisted by: 1) the growing catalog of known systems, increasing from 33 to nearly 250 between the Merline et al. (2002)…
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