Possibility of collision between co-orbital asteroids and the Earth

Considering hypothetical co-orbital asteroids with the Earth, Tatum (1997) presented a study about the necessary radial distance in order to produce collision. He adopted an analysis considering a composition of circular two-body systems, Sun-Earth and Sun-Asteroid. He found that asteroids with radi...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Domingos, R. C., Winter, O. C. [UNESP]
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2005
País:Brasil
Institución:Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP)
Repositorio:Repositório Institucional da UNESP
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:repositorio.unesp.br:11449/232031
Acceso en línea:http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/s1807-03022005000100006
http://hdl.handle.net/11449/232031
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Asteroid
Co-orbital
Collision
Earth
Descripción
Sumario:Considering hypothetical co-orbital asteroids with the Earth, Tatum (1997) presented a study about the necessary radial distance in order to produce collision. He adopted an analysis considering a composition of circular two-body systems, Sun-Earth and Sun-Asteroid. He found that asteroids with radial positions between 0.9943 and 1.0057AU would necessarily collide with the Earth. In the present work, we show that this problem cannot be treated in this way. Adopting the circular restricted three-body problem, we verified that asteroids in the supposed region of collision with the Earth have stable horseshoe trajectories. Therefore, in the co-orbital region the dynamical system has to be studied as a restricted three-body problem since the composition of two-body problems gives a misleading result.