Origin of Mars's moons by disruptive partial capture of an asteroid
| Autor: | Kegerreis, Jacob A., Lissauer, Jack J., Eke, Vincent R., Sandnes, Thomas D., Elphic, Richard C. |
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| Rok vydání: | 2024 |
| Předmět: | |
| Druh dokumentu: | Working Paper |
| Popis: | The origin of Phobos and Deimos remains unknown. They are typically thought either to be captured asteroids or to have accreted from a debris disk produced by a giant impact. Here, we present an alternative scenario wherein fragments of a tidally disrupted asteroid are captured and evolve into a collisional proto-satellite disk. We simulate the initial disruption and the fragments' subsequent orbital evolution. We find that tens of percent of an unbound asteroid's mass can be captured and survive beyond collisional timescales, across a broad range of periapsis distances, speeds, masses, spins, and orientations in the Sun--Mars frame. Furthermore, more than one percent of the asteroid's mass could evolve to circularise in the moons' accretion region. The resulting lower mass requirement for the parent body than that for a giant impact could increase the likelihood of this route to forming a proto-satellite disk that, unlike direct capture, could also naturally explain the moons' orbits. These formation scenarios imply different properties of Mars's moons to be tested by upcoming spacecraft missions. Comment: 31 pages, 17 figures, 3 tables. Submitted to Icarus, comments welcome |
| Databáze: | arXiv |
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