Rubble pile

The Martian moon Phobos is believed by scientists to be a "rubble pile".

In astronomy, a rubble pile is an object that is not a monolith, consisting instead of numerous pieces of rock that have coalesced under the influence of gravity. Rubble piles have low density because there are large cavities between the various chunks that make them up. Many asteroids and comets are thought to be composed of coalesced rubble.

Overview

Asteroids

A close analogy to a rubble pile is a partially melted shot and wax slug projectile commonly fired from a shotgun as opposed to a monolithic pure lead slug, with the former having a lower density as it is loosely held together by wax and is composed of numerous individual lead bird shot spheres.

Rubble piles form when an asteroid or moon (which may originally be monolithic) is smashed to pieces by an impact, and the shattered pieces subsequently fall back together, primarily due to self-gravitation. This coalescing usually takes from several hours to weeks.[1]

When a rubble-pile asteroid passes a much more massive object, tidal forces change its shape.[2]

Scientists first suspected that asteroids are often rubble piles when asteroid densities were first determined. Many of the calculated densities were significantly less than those of meteorites, which in some cases had been determined to be pieces of asteroids.

Many asteroids with low densities are thought to be rubble piles, for example 253 Mathilde. The mass of Mathilde, as determined by the NEAR Shoemaker mission, is far too low for the volume observed, considering the surface is rock. Even ice with a thin crust of rock would not provide a suitable density. Also, the large impact craters on Mathilde would have shattered a rigid body. However, the first unambiguous rubble pile to be photographed is 25143 Itokawa, which has no obvious impact craters and is thus almost certainly a coalescence of shattered fragments.

The asteroid 433 Eros, the primary destination of NEAR Shoemaker, was determined to be riven with cracks but otherwise solid. Other asteroids, possibly including Itokawa, have been found to be contact binaries, two major bodies touching, with or without rubble filling the boundary.

Large interior voids are possible because of the very low gravity of most asteroids. Despite a fine regolith on the outside (at least to the resolution that has been seen with spacecraft), the asteroid's gravity is so weak that friction between fragments dominates and prevents small pieces from falling inwards and filling up the voids.

All the largest asteroids (1 Ceres, 2 Pallas, 4 Vesta, 10 Hygiea, 704 Interamnia) are solid objects without any macroscopic internal porosity. This may be because they have been large enough to withstand all impacts, and have never been shattered. Alternatively, Ceres and some few other of the largest asteroids may be massive enough that, even if they were shattered but not dispersed, their gravity would collapse most voids upon recoalescing. Vesta, at least, has withstood intact one major impact since its formation and shows signs of internal structure from differentiation in the resultant crater that assure us it is not a rubble pile. This serves as evidence for size as a protection from shattering into rubble.

Comets

Observational evidence suggest that the cometary nucleus may not be a well-consolidated single body, but may instead be a loosely bound agglomeration of smaller fragments, weakly bonded and subject to occasional or even frequent disruptive events, although the larger cometary fragments are expected to be primordial condensations rather than collisionally derived debris as in the asteroid case.[3][4][5][6][7] However, in situ observations by the Rosetta mission, indicates that it may be more complex than that.[8]

Moons

Notably, the moon Phobos, the larger of the two natural satellites of the planet Mars, is also thought to be a rubble pile bound together by a thin regolith crust about 100 m (330 ft) thick.[9][10] Spectroscopy of Phobos' composition suggests that Phobos may be a captured main-belt asteroid.[11][12]

See also

Comet nucleus

References

  1. ↑ P. Michel; et al. (2001). "Collisions and Gravitational Reaccumulation: Forming Asteroid Families and Satellites". Science. 294 (5547): 1696–700. Bibcode:2001Sci...294.1696M. doi:10.1126/science.1065189. PMID 11721050.
  2. ↑ Solem, J. C.; Hills, J. (1996). "Shaping of Earth-crossing asteroids by tidal forces". The Astronomical Journal. 111 (3): 1382–87. Bibcode:1996AJ....111.1382S. doi:10.1086/117884.
  3. ↑ Weissman, Paul R. (20 March 1986). "Are cometary nuclei primordial rubble piles?". Nature. 320: 242–244. Bibcode:1986Natur.320..242W. doi:10.1038/320242a0. Retrieved 2015-11-11.
  4. ↑ Tidal Disruption of Asteroids and Comets. William Bottke. Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. 1998.
  5. ↑ Stardust at Comet Wild 2. (PDF) Harold A. Weaver, Science 18 JUNE 2004, Vol 304.
  6. ↑ Interior of the Cometary Nucleus. University of California, Los Angeles.
  7. ↑ Asphaug, E.; Benz, W. "Density of comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 deduced by modelling breakup of the parent 'rubble pile'". Nature. 370: 120–124. Retrieved 2015-11-11.
  8. ↑ Khan, Amina (31 July 2015). "After a bounce, Rosetta's Philae lander serves up cometary surprises". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2015-11-11.
  9. ↑ "Phobos is Slowly Falling Apart". NASA. SpaceRef. 10 November 2015. Retrieved 2015-11-11.
  10. ↑ "NASA – Phobos". Solarsystem.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2014-08-04.
  11. ↑ "Close Inspection for Phobos". One idea is that Phobos and Deimos, Mars's other moon, are captured asteroids.
  12. ↑ Landis, G. A. "Origin of Martian Moons from Binary Asteroid Dissociation," American Association for the Advancement of Science Annual Meeting; Boston, MA, 2001; abstract.

External links

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