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Modeling of migrating grains on asteroid’s surface

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Abstract

We present a numerical method based on the polyhedral data of asteroid shape for simulation of individual grain’s dynamics around the asteroid surface, with application to migration of regolith material on specific asteroid. Surface gravitational attraction and potential are computed using polyhedral method with a correction on possible singularities; asteroid surface is approximated with continuous quartic Bézier patches based on the division of polyhedral mesh, which provides sufficient geometrical information for the simulation. Orbital motion and surface motion are processed separately by checking if the particle touches or leaves the surface. Collisions are treated as instantaneous point-contact events with the local quartic curved surface. The subpoint is recorded throughout the process to track the ID of the particle. We provide full description of this method including very detailed treatments in numeric. Several basic tests are conducted to examine the performance of this method, and the potential application of this method is also discussed. The test results of seismic regolith migration on crater walls show consistent conclusions with former investigation.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program, 2012CB720000).

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  1. School of Aerospace, Tsinghua University, Mengminwei Sci.&Tech. Building N904, 100084, Beijing, China

    Yang Yu

  2. School of Aerospace, Tsinghua University, Mengminwei Sci.&Tech. Building N903, 100084, Beijing, China

    Hexi Baoyin

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  1. Yang Yu
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  2. Hexi Baoyin
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Correspondence to Yang Yu.

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Yu, Y., Baoyin, H. Modeling of migrating grains on asteroid’s surface. Astrophys Space Sci 355, 43–56 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10509-014-2140-3

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