CHARACTERISING THE INTERNAL STRUCTURE OF ASTEROIDS AND COMETS

摘要

The internal structures of asteroids and cornets are the consequences of the physical processes that they undergo over their history of mutual encounters and collisions. A qualitative way of characterising their internal structures has been proposed recently (Richardson et al., 2002). In order to distinguish between different bodies of the same size but very different structures―like binary asteroids and sand piles, for instance―I propose a quantitative way of discriminating between different internal structures by means of defming a parameter relating volumes and surfaces of components, and the corresponding mass spectrum. The definition of this parameter is introduced, and a few examples and applications are also presented. Together with mass, size, porosity, and relative tensile strenght, this parameter may give a more detailed description of the physical and structural characteristics of asteroids and comets.