Didymos Primary’s Close-to-Critical Fast Spin: Effects on Mass Transfer and External Morphology of binary component
Event Timeslots (1)
Tuesday 9th
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Didymos Primary’s Close-to-Critical Fast Spin: Effects on Mass Transfer and External Morphology of binary component
The primary of the NEA binary system (65603) Didymos is supposed to be a rubble pile asteroid, with a fast rotational period (2.2600 ± 0.0001 h) [Pravec et al., 2005], placing it near the critical stability limit. Trógolo, et al. (2023) have demonstrated that this asteroid may experience regolith loss from its equatorial region, as the centripetal force can potentially overcome the local surface gravity. In this study, we aim to refine our previous research by using the latest orbital and physical parameters of the binary, which have been provided by NASA’s DART investigation team [Naidu et al., in press]. We analyze the implication of Didymos’ actual spin state on its recent history and we compared the obtained results with the images taken by DART spacecraft and LICIACube to provide a possible explanation for their external stony configuration seen before the impact test.