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The operational environment and rotational acceleration of asteroid (101955) Bennu from OSIRIS-REx observations
Name
s41467-019-09213-x.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
1018.38 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
7191a4750b0a7db152439740cc9eb680
Date Issued
December 1, 2019
Journal
Nature Communications
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Version
Final published version
Abstract
© 2019, The Author(s). During its approach to asteroid (101955) Bennu, NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft surveyed Bennu’s immediate environment, photometric properties, and rotation state. Discovery of a dusty environment, a natural satellite, or unexpected asteroid characteristics would have had consequences for the mission’s safety and observation strategy. Here we show that spacecraft observations during this period were highly sensitive to satellites (sub-meter scale) but reveal none, although later navigational images indicate that further investigation is needed. We constrain average dust production in September 2018 from Bennu’s surface to an upper limit of 150 g s–1 averaged over 34 min. Bennu’s disk-integrated photometric phase function validates measurements from the pre-encounter astronomical campaign. We demonstrate that Bennu’s rotation rate is accelerating continuously at 3.63 ± 0.52 × 10–6 degrees day–2, likely due to the Yarkovsky–O’Keefe–Radzievskii–Paddack (YORP) effect, with evolutionary implications.
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
10.1038/s41467-019-09213-x
