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La Spina A, Paolicchi P, Kryszczyńska A, et al. Retrograde spins of near-Earth asteroids from the Yarkovsky effect. Nature. 2004;428(6981):400-1doi: 10.1038/nature02411.
La Spina, A., Paolicchi, P., Kryszczyńska, A., & Pravec, P. (2004). Retrograde spins of near-Earth asteroids from the Yarkovsky effect. Nature, 428(6981), 400-1. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02411
La Spina, A, et al. "Retrograde spins of near-Earth asteroids from the Yarkovsky effect." Nature vol. 428,6981 (2004): 400-1. doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02411
La Spina A, Paolicchi P, Kryszczyńska A, Pravec P. Retrograde spins of near-Earth asteroids from the Yarkovsky effect. Nature. 2004 Mar 25;428(6981):400-1. doi: 10.1038/nature02411. PMID: 15042082.
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Nature. 2004 Mar 25;428(6981):400-1. doi: 10.1038/nature02411.

Retrograde spins of near-Earth asteroids from the Yarkovsky effect.

Nature

A La Spina, P Paolicchi, A Kryszczyńska, P Pravec

Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Matematica, Università di Pisa, via Buonarroti 2, I-56127 Pisa, Italy.

PMID: 15042082 DOI: 10.1038/nature02411

Abstract

Dynamical resonances in the asteroid belt are the gateway for the production of near-Earth asteroids (NEAs). To generate the observed number of NEAs, however, requires the injection of many asteroids into those resonant regions. Collisional processes have long been claimed as a possible source, but difficulties with that idea have led to the suggestion that orbital drift arising from the Yarkovsky effect dominates the injection process. (The Yarkovsky effect is a force arising from differential heating-the 'afternoon' side of an asteroid is warmer than the 'morning' side.) The two models predict different rotational properties of NEAs: the usual collisional theories are consistent with a nearly isotropic distribution of rotation vectors, whereas the 'Yarkovsky model' predicts an excess of retrograde rotations. Here we report that the spin vectors of NEAs show a strong and statistically significant excess of retrograde rotations, quantitatively consistent with the theoretical expectations of the Yarkovsky model.

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