Abstract

Radar ranging from Arecibo, Puerto Rico, to the 0.5-kilometer near-Earth asteroid 6489 Golevka unambiguously reveals a small nongravitational acceleration caused by the anisotropic thermal emission of absorbed sunlight. The magnitude of this perturbation, known as the Yarkovsky effect, is a function of the asteroid's mass and surface thermal characteristics. Direct detection of the Yarkovsky effect on asteroids will help constrain their physical properties, such as bulk density, and refine their orbital paths. Based on the strength of the detected perturbation, we estimate the bulk density of Golevka to be \batchmode \documentclass[fleqn,10pt,legalpaper]{article} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amsmath} \pagestyle{empty} \begin{document} \(2.7_{-0.6}^{+0.4}\) \end{document} grams per cubic centimeter.

Keywords

AsteroidPhysicsMeteoroidPerturbation (astronomy)AstrophysicsRangingAnisotropyThermalLaser rangingAstronomyGeodesyGeologyOpticsLaserMeteorology

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Publication Info

Year
2003
Type
article
Volume
302
Issue
5651
Pages
1739-1742
Citations
196
Access
Closed

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Cite This

Steven R. Chesley, S. J. Ostro, David Vokrouhlický et al. (2003). Direct Detection of the Yarkovsky Effect by Radar Ranging to Asteroid 6489 Golevka. Science , 302 (5651) , 1739-1742. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1091452

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DOI
10.1126/science.1091452