The surface sensitivity of rubble-pile asteroids during a distant planetary encounter: Influence of asteroid shape elongation

TL;DR

This study uses numerical simulations to explore how asteroid elongation affects surface slope sensitivity to tidal forces during distant planetary encounters, revealing that more elongated asteroids experience greater slope variations.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of how asteroid shape elongation influences surface sensitivity to tidal effects during planetary encounters.

Findings

Elongated asteroids show higher surface slope variation.

Surface variation does not increase monotonically with elongation.

Shape elongation significantly impacts tidal surface responses.

Abstract

We numerically investigate how an asteroid's elongation controls the sensitivity of its surface to tidal effects during a distant planetary encounter beyond the Roche limit. We analyze the surface slope and its variation by considering the shape elongation, as well as the spin period and orbital conditions. A more elongated asteroid tends to have a higher slope variation, while there may not be a monotonic increase of the total area having such a variation