The asteroid Ryugu may be an extinct comet

It takes about two centuries to discover the existence of asteroids, but a thousand years for comets. However, that was not until the second half of the twentieth century^And Century so we begin to understand their nature and their origin. The revolution ofSpace It also helped us to observe them more meticulously during that time, especially its wonderful work ESA’s Giotto study of approaching Halley’s Comet in 1986. We know the ESA is going to do better with the study Rosetta And comet 67P / Tchourioumov-Guérassimenko.

In recent years, this has been the task Hayabusa Is centered on these little celestial bodies by providing only 2 Asteroid (162173) Close-up images of RyuguBut this work made it possible to collect samples Asteroid Apollon type C, discovered in 1999, is dangerous. These models have come to Earth and are still being analyzed.

Three traces of Ryuku’s appearance

First data about Ryu However, it was somewhat surprising and led to the proposition of some hypotheses to calculate them. The asteroid has the shape of a rotating surface that can explain itself well if it adopts the shape of equilibrium in response to a rapid rotation. All that was left was to calculate this rapid rotation.

To understand the shape of its balance, it is necessary to know that Ryu found that it could be thought of as a pile of ruins made of small pieces of rock and objects. Solid The single rock is held together by gravity rather than by rock. One way to explain it is that in fact the fragments that form during a collision between two asteroids will slowly merge under their own gravitational pull (Ryuquin’s size is approximately 920 meters).

Another data provided by the mission, the small celestial body is surprisingly rich Thing Organic.

(162173) All these parts of the mystery of Ryu’s identity and origin have been reconnected in a completely different way by a research team led by Hitoshi Miura. Nagoya City UniversityIn Japan, in the open access article Letters from the Journal of Astronomy.

Astronomers have developed a new model that better calculates all of Ryuku’s views and concludes that it is a dead comet, i.e. what’s left of it when such an object approaches it again and again in a particular orbit. The sun Its volatile matter is almost exhausted – mostly water ice.

A dirty snowball shrinks

Display formed with Equations Ideologically simple by Hitoshi Miura and his colleagues Aiso Nakamura and Tak Gunihiro from the University of Okayama in Japan. If Ryugu was actually a comet, the chocolate chips would melt on the surface and many times evaporate compared to ice. The nails will accumulate at the end of the glaze and come together at the bottom of the container containing the initial mixture.

Created beyond orbit Thursday In Protoplanetary disk Initially about 4.5 billion years ago, a comet must have been very popular The “dirty snowball” model was proposed by astronomer Fred Lawrence WhippleThe whole is composed of blocks of different sizes with ice.

As it evaporates, the size of the comet decreases, which changes the moment of its recession as a skater brings his hands together. Security Cinema moment Lead to get her Rotation speed Accelerate when its size decreases.

The researchers’ model calculates this type of spinning top caused by the calculated rotational speed. Via From Numerical simulations Because the comet initially formed in cold regions rich in volatile organic matter, Ryugu appears to be more carbonaceous than other asteroids studied from Earth by spectroscopy.

Objects in the shape of a rotating top and pile, according to a report by the University of Nagoya with published scientific work Ruins With high organic content such as Ryugu and Bennu (work goal) Osiris-RexComet-asteroid transformation (CAT) objects. ” Gates are small objects that were once active comets but are dead and indistinguishable from asteroids. “Hitoshi explains who adds Miura:” Due to their similarities with comets and asteroids, CATs can provide new information about our solar system “.