Signatures Of Recent Asteroid Disruptions In The Formation And Evolution Of Solar System Dust Bands
Keywords
celestial mechanics; minor planets, asteroids: general; planets and satellites: dynamical evolution and stability; zodiacal dust
Abstract
We have performed detailed dynamical modeling of the structure of a faint dust band observed in coadded InfraRed Astronomical Satellite data at an ecliptic latitude of 17°that convincingly demonstrates that it is the result of a relatively recent (significantly less than 1 Ma) disruption of an asteroid and is still in the process of forming. We show here that young dust bands retain information on the size distribution and cross-sectional area of dust released in the original asteroid disruption, before it is lost to orbital and collisional decay. We find that the Emilkowalski cluster is the source of this partial band and that the dust released in the disruption would correspond to a regolith layer ∼3 m deep on the ∼10 km diameter source body's surface. The dust in this band is described by a cumulative size-distribution inverse power-law index with a lower bound of 2.1 (implying domination of cross-sectional area by small particles) for dust particles with diameters ranging from a few μm up to a few cm. The coadded observations show that the thermal emission of the dust band structure is dominated by large (mm-cm size) particles. We find that dust particle ejection velocities need to be a few times the escape velocity of the Emilkowalski cluster source body to provide a good fit to the inclination dispersion of the observations. We discuss the implications that such a significant release of material during a disruption has for the temporal evolution of the structure, composition, and magnitude of the zodiacal cloud.
Publication Date
9-20-2015
Publication Title
Astrophysical Journal
Volume
811
Issue
1
Document Type
Article
Personal Identifier
scopus
DOI Link
https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/811/1/66
Copyright Status
Unknown
Socpus ID
84945583422 (Scopus)
Source API URL
https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/84945583422
STARS Citation
Kehoe, A. J.Espy; Kehoe, T. J.J.; Colwell, J. E.; and Dermott, S. F., "Signatures Of Recent Asteroid Disruptions In The Formation And Evolution Of Solar System Dust Bands" (2015). Scopus Export 2015-2019. 169.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/scopus2015/169