The “July” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, so to speak, is nice. Too bad the org will not go quasi-paper (a 1:1 online version of a paper one), nor fully digital (no month affectation at all). Articles instead trickle out, and trickle again. So here’s my take on “July”, assuming few if any trickles left:
vol 531, #3
Planes, M. B. Parisi, G. Millán, E. N. et al. Dust–dust collisions in cometary comas: applications to com…
P. 3168 stae1078
Huang, H. et al. Orbit determination of asteroid (469219) Kamo‘oalewa using a combination of historic… P. 3595 stae1306
vol 531, #4
Boehnhardt, Hermann et al. Coma and tail of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko during the 2021-…
P. 3912 stae1412
Carruba, V. et al. Digitally filtered resonant arguments for deep learning classification of asteroids in se…
P. 4432 stae1446
vol 532, #1
Prasad, B. Das, H. S. Unveiling the properties of asteroids: linking photopolarimetry to spectral classifi…
P. 22 stae1409
Guimarães, M. C. et al. Past orbital evolution and its effects on the surface of (162173) Ryugu P. 517 stae1494
Liu, P.-Y. et al. Impact-induced deformation away from the impact point on small asteroids P. 1129 stae1463
Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko is a fertile field in more ways than one. Planes et al. are still using the Rosetta dataset to examine coma complexity: high activity, vs. hyperactivity (a different process- comets shedding ‘micro-comets’), vs. something else…?
Kamowalewa: Earth co-orbiter, and target of a Chinese probe, because it’s that interesting.
Churyumov-Gerasimenko: still interesting, after Rosetta, because now we know how to put 2022 observations in their context of a resolved, characterized nucleus. Other C-G apparitions had been poor for ground-based observing (too close to the Sun in the sky).
Deep learning: certainly applicable (not just hype) to classification of large datasets. Asteroids are certainly a large dataset, though here Carruba et al. are classifying them dynamically, by their resonances/orbit states.
And speaking of large datasets, we have >1 million asteroids, but for the majority only on an astrometric basis (that they exist, with orbital data; nothing more). How do we turn these dots into characterized (small) bodies? Prasad and Das are starting with one part: spectral classification (i. e., S-type vs. C-type or whatever).
…and speaking of characterized bodies, what does Ryugu (characterized from samples in the lab) suggest about its own prior history? Did that “dot in the sky” come in from the cold, outer Solar System, and had it previously been in an orbit close to the Sun?
The billion (plus?) dollar question: what’s a threat to Earth. Liu et al. consider the geodynamics of small asteroids (not held together well, like Earth or its satellite) under natural impact (which looks a lot like unnatural impact- e. g., DART).