22 2 Asteroids

does 1992 QB1 mean? Yes, it is the 27th asteroid discovered in the second half of
August 1992. We will see later on, that this object is of special pertinence.
Okay, so much about the provisional designations. As soon as the orbit of the
asteroid is confirmed, meaning it really exists, can be found again and is indeed an
asteroid, it is given a number enclosed in brackets (subsequently counted) and
sometimes it is also given a name. However, naming has gone out of fashion for
quite some time. The sheer number of new discoveries makes it difficult to assign a
name to each one.
In addition, originally the name was taken from Roman or Greek mythology but,
the reservoir of available names was soon exhausted. Nowadays, names from
various sources can be used, such as a famous person, the spouses name or a TV
character. Just to mention a few: (2309) Mr. Spock, (9007) James Bond and (26858)
Misterrogers.
However, the choice of name, contrary to what it might appear from the above, is
not completely free. For some objects the name space is limited. The centaurs,
objects between Saturn and Neptune which show characteristics of both comets and
asteroids, are restricted to the names of the centaurs known from Greek mythology.
The names of the Jupiter Trojans, an important class of asteroids co-orbiting the gas
giant, have to be chosen among the heroes of the Trojan War.

2.3 Origin and Evolution

Heinrich Olbers postulated a first hypothesis on the formation of the asteroid belt in
1802 shortly after he had discovered the second asteroid, Pallas. He suggested that
both Ceres and Pallas were remnants of a much larger planet that originally orbited
the Sun in the same region between Mars and Jupiter approximately 2.8 AU from
the Sun.
He thought the planet had been destroyed either by a massive internal explosion
or a comet impact. The fragments then formed the asteroids or planets, as they were
then called.
Yet, this hypothesis soon fell in disgrace after the advent of spectral analysis
which allowed the determination of the chemical compositions if these bodies. It
turned out that this varied significantly from asteroid to asteroid. How could these
diverse bodies have originated from a common body?
In addition, an event having the huge amount of energy that would be needed to
tear a planet apart was considered to be unlikely to arise. No process was known by
that time that could unleash such a force.
The last counter-argument brought forward was the relatively low mass of all the
asteroids put together. Was that sufficient to form a planet? And so the scientific
community discarded this hypothesis.
2.3 Origin and Evolution 23

2.3.1 From the Protoplanetary Disk to a Primordial Belt

Other hypotheses were formulated, but nowadays astronomers believe that the
asteroid belt formed in the same process as the planets in the protoplanetary disk.
We have already learnt about this in a previous chapter when we discussed the
formation of our solar system.
Here, we will just focus on the details necessary to understand the origin of the
asteroid belt. An accretion process took place in the protoplanetary disk in which
small particles within the disk collided and stuck together. By this, clumps of small
particles developed that gradually grew in size. When a certain threshold of the
mass of these clumps was exceeded, gravitational effects replaced the sticky
collisions. The clumps were massive enough in order to attract others and collide
with them. The clumps grew into planetesimals whose interactions led to the
formation of the terrestrial planets and the gas giants.
Why then, following the same process, did no planet develop in the region
between Mars and Jupiter? This is owed to the influence of the gas giants and in
particular Jupiters gravitational influence. Astronomers assume today that after the
dissipation of the gas and dust of the protoplanetary disk at the end of the formation
of our solar system, the four gas giants Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune were
originally much closer together in a region stretching from a distance of about 5.5 to
17 AU from the Sun. At present, their orbits lie in the region of about 530 AU.
The orbits of the planetesimals in the early, primordial asteroid belt were
strongly perturbed by Jupiters gravity, which essentially hindered the formation
of another planet. Due to the perturbations, the number of collisions of the plane-
tesimals significantly increased and became more successful than the accretion of
the planetesimals.
Orbital resonances existed with Jupiter within this early belt, some being
disruptive, and some stabilizing. Thus, in some resonance bands the planetesimals
were not perturbed, in others, however, massively. This led to a thinning out of
bodies in the latter ones. The scattered objects moved along more or less arbitrary
orbits in the early solar systems and were often on a collision course with one of the
planets or their moons. Impact craters on terrestrial planets and rocky, planetary
moons are the best evidence for these events.

2.3.2 Planetary Migration Reshuffles the Pack

Then, by interacting with another disc of planetesimals beyond the orbits of the
outermost gas giants, the proto-Kuiper belt (see Chap. 4), a process called planetary
migration started in which the outer gas giants Saturn, Neptune and Uranus moved
gradually outwards while Jupiter moved towards the Sun. Several hundred mil-
lion years (500600 million years) of slow but gradual migration passed when
Jupiter and Saturn reached their 2:1 mean motion resonance. This increased their
24 2 Asteroids

respective orbital eccentricities. This particular strong resonance caused a destabi-

lization of the entire solar system in which essentially Jupiter pushed Saturn to its
current position with the help of mutual interactions with the two ice giants, Uranus
and Neptune.
This 2:1 mean motion resonance also had a big influence on the early asteroid
belt. Following the so-called Nice-model describing the planetary migration a large
number of planetesimals were captured in the outer asteroid belt at distances greater
than 2.6 AU from the Sun. In that region, collisional erosion occurred in which
much smaller fragments of the original planetesimals were created by collisions.
These smaller bodies were so small that they could be influenced by the solar wind
and effectively be blown away. This removed about 90 % of the original material
from the primordial belt.
Furthermore, while Jupiter migrated further inward, the aforementioned reso-
nance bands swept across the belt and dynamically excited the regions population.
Just think about a region that had been stable and now became subjected to Jupiters
devastating gravitational influence. This led to a further loss of material. Astrono-
mers believe that the primordial belt had at one time a total mass equivalent to that
of Earth. At the end of its formation it had been reduced to about 0.1 % of that
original mass.

2.3.3 Further Evolution, or, Nothing Stays the Same

Even after this eventful formation history, the asteroid belt did not come to a halt. If
we were to assume that, asteroids are composed of primordial material of the
protoplanetary disk, we would be wrong. Asteroids developed further and
underwent a considerable evolution, significantly changing their chemical
compositions.
The larger asteroids were subjected to a brief period of radioactive decay of the
aluminium isotope 86Al and iron isotope 60Fe during which the asteroids partially
melted. The resulting heavier elements such as nickel (Ni) and iron (Fe) sank to the
inner core due to gravitational effects, just as a stine sinks in water. The lighter
compounds such as silicates remained in the upper, outer layers of the asteroid.
Thus, the once uniformly composed bodies were transformed to have differentiated
metallic cores and silicate mantles.
In addition to radioactive decay, surfaces were also likely to melt and thus
subject to alteration due to impacts and bombardments by micrometeorites. Basi-
cally, all asteroids were subjected to these events.
There is one more aspect dating back to the formation of the belt which acts to
destroy the assumed homogeneity of asteroids in the asteroid belt. At a distance of
2.7 AU from the Sun, a so-called snow line developed. Beyond this line,
planetesimals were able to accumulate ice as their temperature dipped below the
freezing points of the volatiles. These objects may exhibit a different surface
structure as those within the line. The bodies become more comet-like. Indeed, in
2.4 Distribution Within the Solar System 25

2006, it was announced that comets had been detected within the asteroid belt
beyond the snow line, the main belt comets. We will deal with these in Chap. 3.

2.4 Distribution Within the Solar System

Before we have a closer look at the asteroids orbital and physical characteristics, it
is advisable to provide a broad overview on the distribution of these bodies within
the solar system and to bring some order into the apparent chaos. Thereafter, we
will address each group of asteroids individually in detail.
In general, we should note that most asteroids have more chaotic and eccentric
orbits compared to the planets, which travel around the Sun in near-circular orbits.
Let us start our considerations by looking at the asteroids within the orbit of
Mars, these being inner solar system asteroids. Several groups exist. Most of them
are composed of quite small bodies with diameters of 5 km or less. Some cross
the orbits of planets, others move completely within or outside of these.
The first ones we encounter when traveling from the Sun to the outer regions of
our Solar System, is a postulated group named Vulcanoids named after the hypo-
thetical planet Vulcan, whose existence was disproved in 1915. Some scientists
proposed the existence of the Vulcanoids in order to explain certain aspects of
Mercurys orbit. This group is supposed to be very close to the Sun, i.e., well within
the orbit of Mercury. So far, no Vulcanoid has been discovered and it is not clear
whether any exist. Another large group comprises the Near Earth Asteroids (NEA)
whose orbits pass close to the orbit of the Earth. Their perihelia are usually
considered to be at distances of less than 1.3 AU from the Sun. This group draws
particular attention as its members may be potential collision candidates. Therefore,
a large number of automatic survey programs have been set up in order to identify
as many NEAs as possible. Among them are the Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid
Research (LINEAR), Catalina Sky Survey, Pan-STARRS, NEAT, and LONEOS.
So far these programs have proven to be very successful.
Figure 2.3 illustrates the further sub-classification of NEAs. There is an Amor-
type and Apohele-type. Then there is the category of Earth-crossers meaning Near
Earth Asteroids that actually cross the orbit of Earth. Among them are the Apollo-,
Aten- and Arjuna-asteroids.
If we move a bit farther out in the solar system, we encounter the main asteroid
belt between Mars and Jupiter, which comprises about 90 % of all known asteroids
in our solar system. The main asteroid belt is further subdivided into the inner main
belt ranging from about 2.06 to 2.5 AU distance from the Sun, the middle belt
(2.5 to 2.8 AU), and the outer belt from 2.8 to approximately 3.3 AU distance from
the Sun.
Additionally, some smaller groups of asteroids can be found outside the main
belt whose orbits are often in stabilizing resonances with Jupiter. What makes them
particularly interesting and distinct from the main belt asteroids are their often
highly inclined orbits compared to the ecliptic plane. The Hilda-group, Hungaria-
group and the Cybele-family are just a few to name.