The November edition of MNRAS (actually three “issues”) is now up:
Volume 543, Issue 3, November
Huang, C. Wu, Y. Yu, Y. Force chains bias the dynamic response to impacts in rubble-pile asteroids Pg 2523 staf1575
Matsuoka, R. N. Kuramoto, K. Origin of Phobos and Deimos: gas-drag capture of temporarily captured bodies Pg 2613 staf1534
Doressoundiram, A. Roques, F. Chang, H-K. Serendipitous occultations by sub-kilometre-sized trans-Neptunian objects with MIOSOTYS – I Pg 2706 staf1608
Volume 543, Issue 4, November
Baoyin, T. Jiao, Y. Cheng, B. Predicting the collision history of basaltic asteroids from parametrized shapes with an artificial neural network Pg 3382 staf1628
Fang, X. Q. Peng, Q. Y. Lu, X. et al. Improved precise positions of Apophis in 2013: recalibration based on Gaia DR3 and differential colour refraction correction Pg 4130 staf1646
Pereira, W. Arcoverde, P. Melita, M. et al. Photometric characterization of near-Earth objects from OASI and CASLEO observations Pg 4235 staf1701
Volume 544, Issue 1, November
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Particle sims are an essential part of asteroid studies and planetary defense. How do asteroids- especially rubble-pile objects, not held together solidly- behave in micro-gravity and ultrahard vacuum? This is an unearthly environment, and we can’t just project our terrestrial experience.
Until (and maybe after?) MMX returns, we won’t know the origins of Mars’ satellites. Are they bits of Mars from a Giant Impact, or are they captured asteroids? Matsuoka and Kuramoto go through some finer details on one possibility.
The search for the Solar System’s last tiny bits continues. One way is occultation/microlensing: watching background stars for a ‘wink-out’ as a small body passes in front of them, from our line of sight. Doressoundiram et al. use this technique for trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs), but it’s also applicable for search (and characterization) of closer objects.
And speaking of sims, Baoyin do collisional modeling. Assuming a spherical parent body (appropriate for the larger asteroids), what do its pieces look like? This might come in handy for A-type and other ‘pieces’ asteroids (and some V-type?). A bit of a reach, I think- judge for yourself.
The Apophis impact progression went from nothing, to an impact risk, to lower risk, to zero risk (flyby). For the most part, this was done with ground telescopes tracking the asteroid. But ground telescopes suffer from errors- Fang et al. identify and chase down two errors on this risk assessment.
More generally, we follow up on asteroids (including near-Earth ones) with the resources we have. There are far more asteroids than scientists studying them; anything that chips away at our backlog improves humanity’s understanding. Here, Pereira et al. study a few dozen near-Earth asteroids using “small” (~1.3 meter) telescopes at their disposal, and improve our understanding.