Discovering Two New Asteroid Populations

Event Date:
2021-02-22T15:00:00
2021-02-22T16:00:00
Event Location:
Connect via zoom
Speaker:
Sarah Greenstreet (UWashington)
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Intended Audience:
Undergraduate
Local Contact:

Douglas Scott

Event Information:

We discovered two new dynamical populations of asteroids in our improved orbital distribution model of the near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) produced 10 years ago as my Master's thesis at UBC. These populations include NEAs that have decoupled from Venus (have orbits entirely interior to Venus' orbit), a difficult orbit to achieve, and asteroids evolving to retrograde orbits (backwards around the Sun), a process previously thought not to be dynamically possible. I will describe our model and discuss the typical dynamical behavior these populations of asteroids exhibit and compare that to the orbital evolution and characteristics of the few, rare known objects that have very recently been discovered in both populations. I will end with an open question of whether the production of asteroids on retrograde orbits in the main asteroid belt can explain the origins of some known Kuiper Belt objects on high inclination orbits that have been discovered over the past two decades, with origins as yet unexplained.

Add to Calendar 2021-02-22T15:00:00 2021-02-22T16:00:00 Discovering Two New Asteroid Populations Event Information: We discovered two new dynamical populations of asteroids in our improved orbital distribution model of the near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) produced 10 years ago as my Master's thesis at UBC. These populations include NEAs that have decoupled from Venus (have orbits entirely interior to Venus' orbit), a difficult orbit to achieve, and asteroids evolving to retrograde orbits (backwards around the Sun), a process previously thought not to be dynamically possible. I will describe our model and discuss the typical dynamical behavior these populations of asteroids exhibit and compare that to the orbital evolution and characteristics of the few, rare known objects that have very recently been discovered in both populations. I will end with an open question of whether the production of asteroids on retrograde orbits in the main asteroid belt can explain the origins of some known Kuiper Belt objects on high inclination orbits that have been discovered over the past two decades, with origins as yet unexplained. Event Location: Connect via zoom