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Last name: RICHARDSON
First name: Derek
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International audience
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Previous efforts have modeled the Didymos system as two irregularly shaped rigid bodies, although it is likely that one or both components are in fact rubble piles. Here, we relax the rigid-body assumption to quantify how this affects the spin and orbital dynamics of the system following the DART impact. Given the known fundamental differences...
Many if not most small asteroids are rubble piles covered by regolith, and small perturbations may be enough to disturb their surfaces in complex ways due to microgravity. Experiments to study low-gravity regolith dynamics are challenging, and properly validated numerical simulations can provide valuable insights. In this paper, we investigate...
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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The regolith transport near the surface of an asteroid is inherently sensitive to the local topography. In this paper, conditions of surface mass shedding and the subsequent evolution of the shedding material are studied for the primary of 65803 Didymos, serving as a representative for a large group of top-shaped asteroids that rotate near...
International audience
The binary asteroid 65803 Didymos-Dimorphos is the target of the first asteroid deflection test (NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test, DART) and the first binary asteroid system that will be characterized by a rendezvous mission (ESA's Hera). The cohesive strength of the fast-spin-primary Didymos is a key factor that could affect the impact...
NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is designed to be the first demonstration of a kinetic impactor for planetary defense against a small-body impact hazard. The target is the smaller component of the binary asteroid 65803 Didymos. We have conducted high-fidelity rigid full two-body simulations of the mutual dynamics of this system...
Context. Landing on the surface of small bodies is particularly challenging, as the physical properties of the surface material are not well known and the mechanical response of this material in a low-gravity environment is not well understood.Aims. In order to improve our understanding of low-speed impact processes on granular media and their...