14 DAY TRIAL // Astronomers say that new evidence collected during asteroids observations show that the space rocks are more than just simple objects revolving around the Sun – they are constantly-changing little worlds onto themselves.
In other words, it would now appear that the space rocks can create miniaturized planetary systems around them, which are constantly evolving into new shapes and patterns.
These “worlds” can give birth to smaller asteroids, which can either start circling their “parent,” or can split off, and head in a course of their own around the Sun.
According to investigators, asteroids are prone to the influence of the Sun regardless of the fact that they are impressive in size. Experts say that the Sun makes the rocks spin like the wind turns a wind turbine propeller, Space Fellowship reports.
Astronomers refer to an asteroid as being “spun up,” when the Sun's influence makes it spin. Eventually, the speed becomes too great, and the space rock suffers “rotational fission.”
This is another way of saying that the spin so fast they break apart. This results in the creation of two smaller asteroids, which begin to orbit each other, producing a binary system.
But, most often, it would appear that the ensuing pieces of rock part ways, as demonstrated by accurate surveys of the sky conducted by researchers in the US, Chile, Israel, Slovakia, the Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Spain and France.
A total of 15 research groups from around the world were involved in this investigation, which was led by expert Petr Pravec. He is based at the Astronomical Institute in the Czech Republic.
Researchers at the University of Colorado in Boulder (UCB) were also involved in the survey.
“It was clear to us then that just computing orbits of the paired asteroids was not sufficient to understand their origin,” Pravec reveals.
“We had to study the properties of the bodies. We used photometric techniques that allowed us to determine their rotation rates and study their relative sizes,” he adds.
“This is perhaps the clearest observational evidence that asteroids aren’t just large rocks in orbit about the Sun that keep the same shape over time,” says UCB aerospace engineering sciences professor Daniel Scheeres.
“Instead, they are little worlds that may be constantly changing as they grow older, sometimes giving birth to smaller asteroids that then start their own life in orbit around the Sun,” he concludes.