Macroscale Roughness Reveals the Complex History of Asteroids Didymos and Dimorphos

Autor: Jean-Baptiste Vincent, Erik Asphaug, Olivier Barnouin, Joel Beccarelli, Paula G. Benavidez, Adriano Campo-Bagatin, Nancy L. Chabot, Carolyn M. Ernst, Pedro H. Hasselmann, Masatoshi Hirabayashi, Simone Ieva, Özgür Karatekin, Tomáš Kašpárek, Tomáš Kohout, Zhong-Yi Lin, Alice Lucchetti, Patrick Michel, Naomi Murdoch, Maurizio Pajola, Laura M. Parro, Sabina D. Raducan, Jessica Sunshine, Gonzalo Tancredi, Josep M. Trigo-Rodriguez, Angelo Zinzi
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2024
Předmět:
Zdroj: The Planetary Science Journal, Vol 5, Iss 10, p 236 (2024)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2632-3338
DOI: 10.3847/PSJ/ad7a01
Popis: Morphological mapping is a fundamental step in studying the processes that shaped an asteroid surface. However, it is challenging and often requires multiple independent assessments by trained experts. Here we present fast methods to detect and characterize meaningful terrains from the topographic roughness: entropy of information, and local mean surface orientation. We apply our techniques to Didymos and Dimorphos, the target asteroids of NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission—the first attempt to deflect an asteroid. Our methods reliably identify morphological units at multiple scales. The comparative study reveals various terrain types, signatures of processes that transformed Didymos and Dimorphos. Didymos shows the most heterogeneity and morphology that indicate recent resurfacing events. Dimorphos is comparatively rougher than Didymos, which may result from the formation process of the binary pair and past interaction between the two bodies. Our methods can be readily applied to other bodies and data sets.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals