Rotationally induced failure of irregularly shaped asteroids

TL;DR

This study uses finite element modeling to analyze how irregularly shaped asteroids fail structurally under rapid rotation, revealing shape-dependent failure modes and emphasizing the importance of actual shape considerations.

Contribution

It provides the first quantitative analysis of shape-dependent failure modes of irregular asteroids under fast spin using FEM simulations.

Findings

Failure regions depend on asteroid shape.

Spheroidal asteroids fail from the interior.

Elongated asteroids fail on planes perpendicular to minimum inertia axes.

Abstract

Many asteroids are rubble piles with irregular shapes. While the irregular shapes of large asteroids may be attributed to collisional events, those of small asteroids may result from not only impact events but also rotationally induced failure, a long-term consequence of small torques caused by, for example, solar radiation pressure. A better understanding of shape deformation induced by such small torques will allow us to give constraints on the evolution process of an asteroid and its structure. However, no quantitative study has been reported to provide the relationship between an asteroid's shape and its failure mode due to its fast rotation. Here, we use a finite element model (FEM) technique to analyze the failure modes and conditions of 24 asteroids with diameters less than 30 - 40 km, which were observed at high resolution by ground radar or asteroid exploration missions. Assuming that the material distribution is uniform, we investigate how these asteroids fail structurally at different spin rates. Our FEM simulations describe the detailed deformation mode of each irregularly shaped asteroid at fast spin. The failed regions depend on the original shape. Spheroidal objects structurally fail from the interior, while elongated objects experience structural failure on planes perpendicular to the minimum moment of inertia axes in the middle of their structure. Contact binary objects have structural failure across their most sensitive cross sections. We further investigate if our FEM analysis is consistent with earlier works that theoretically explored a uniformly rotating triaxial ellipsoid. The results show that global shape variations may significantly change the failure condition of an asteroid. Our work suggests that it is critical to take into account the actual shapes of asteroids to explore their failure modes in detail.