JUTZI , Martin

The current properties of small bodies provide important clues to their origin and history. However, how much small bodies were processed by past collisions and to what extent they retain a record of processes that took place during the formation and early evolution of the Solar System is still poorly understood. Here we study the degree of...

International audience

International audience

Numerical simulations of asteroid breakups, including both the fragmentation of the parent body and the gravitational interactions between the fragments, have allowed us to reproduce successfully the main properties of asteroid families formed in different regimes of impact energy, starting from a non-porous parent body. In this paper, using...

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The Hayabusa2 mission impact experiment on asteroid Ryugu created an unexpectedly large crater. The associated regime of low-gravity, low-strength cratering remained largely unexplored so far, because these impact conditions cannot be re-created in laboratory experiments on Earth. Here we show that the target cohesion may be very low and the...

Several comets observed at close range have bilobate shapes1, including comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko (67P/C–G), which was imaged by the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission2,3. Bilobate comets are thought to be primordial because they are rich in supervolatiles (for example, N2 and CO) and have a low bulk density, which implies that their...

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In 2022 September, the DART spacecraft (NASA's contribution to the Asteroid Impact & Deflection Assessment (AIDA) collaboration) will impact the asteroid Dimorphos, the secondary in the Didymos system. The crater formation and material ejection will affect the orbital period. In 2027, Hera (ESA's contribution to AIDA) will investigate the...

NASAʼs Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission is the first full-scale planetary defense mission. The target is the binary asteroid (65803) Didymos, in which the smaller component Dimorphos (∼164 m equivalent diameter) orbits the larger component Didymos (∼780 m equivalent diameter). The DART spacecraft will impact Dimorphos, changing...

International audience

Hera provides a robust and cost-effective means to perform a planetary defense validation test with a solid balance between risk and innovation. In the frame of the AIDA collaboration, Hera contributes to a truly international planetary defense initiative. It will bring completely new knowledge and insights on asteroid science that will be of...