Physical characteristics of asteroids

Rotation and shape

The rotation periods and shapes of asteroids are determined primarily by monitoring their changing brightness on timescales of minutes to days. Short-period fluctuations in brightness caused by the rotation of an irregularly shaped asteroid or a spherical spotted asteroid (i.e., one with albedo differences) produce a light curve—a graph of brightness versus time—that repeats at regular intervals corresponding to an asteroid’s rotation period. The range of brightness variation is closely related to an asteroid’s shape or spottedness but is more difficult to interpret.

By 2020 reliable rotation periods were known for more than 5,500 asteroids. They range from 25 seconds to 78 days, but more than two-thirds lie between 4 and 24 hours. In some cases periods longer than a few days may actually be due to precession (a smooth slow circling of the rotation axis) caused by an unseen satellite of the asteroid. Periods on the order of minutes are observed only for very small objects (those with diameters less than about 150 metres [500 feet]). The largest asteroids (those with diameters greater than about 200 km [120 miles]) have a mean rotation period close to 8 hours; the value increases to 13 hours for asteroids with diameters of about 100 km (60 miles) and then decreases to about 6 hours for those with diameters of about 10 km (6 miles). The largest asteroids may have preserved the rotation rates they had when they were formed, but the smaller ones almost certainly have had theirs modified by subsequent collisions and, in the case of the very smallest, perhaps also by radiation effects. The difference in rotation periods between 200-km-class and 100-km-class asteroids is believed to stem from the fact that large asteroids retain all of the collision debris from minor collisions, whereas smaller asteroids retain more of the debris ejected in the direction opposite to that of their spins, causing a loss of angular momentum and thus a reduction in speed of rotation.

Major collisions can completely disrupt smaller asteroids. The debris from such collisions makes still smaller asteroids, which can have virtually any shape or spin rate. Thus, the fact that no rotation periods shorter than about two hours have been observed for asteroids greater than about 150 metres in diameter implies that their material strengths are not high enough to withstand the centripetal forces that such rapid spins produce.

It is impossible to distinguish mathematically between the rotation of a spotted sphere and an irregular shape of uniform reflectivity on the basis of observed brightness changes alone. Nevertheless, the fact that opposite sides of most asteroids appear to differ no more than a few percent in albedo suggests that their brightness variations are due mainly to changes in the projection of their illuminated portions as seen from Earth. Hence, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, astronomers generally accept that variations in reflectivity contribute little to the observed amplitude, or range in brightness variation, of an asteroid’s rotational light curve. Vesta is a notable exception to that generalization, because the difference in reflectivity between its opposite hemispheres is known to be sufficient to account for much of its modest light-curve amplitude.

Observed light-curve amplitudes for asteroids range from zero to more than a factor of eight. There are nine reliably observed asteroids with light-curve amplitudes greater than 2.0 magnitudes; all are NEAs. They have rotation periods between 7.4 minutes and 6.8 hours and diameters between approximately 28 metres (92 feet) and 2.5 km (1.6 miles).

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A rotating asteroid shows a light-curve amplitude of zero (no change in amplitude) when its shape is a uniform sphere or when it is viewed along one of its rotational axes. Before Geographos was studied by radar (see above Near-Earth asteroids), its 6.5 to 1 variation in brightness was ascribed to either of two possibilities: the asteroid is a cigar-shaped object that is being viewed along a line perpendicular to its rotational axis (which for normally rotating asteroids is the shortest axis), or it is a pair of objects nearly in contact that orbit each other around their centre of mass. The radar images ruled out the binary model, revealing that Geographos is a single highly elongated object.

The mean rotational light-curve amplitude for asteroids is a factor of about 1.3. That information, together with the assumptions discussed above, allows astronomers to estimate asteroid shapes, which occur in a wide range. Some asteroids, such as Ceres, Pallas, and Vesta, are nearly spherical, whereas others, such as (15) Eunomia, (107) Camilla, and (511) Davida, are quite elongated. Still others, as, for example, (1580) Betulia, Hektor, and Castalia (the last of which appears in radar observations to be two bodies in contact, as discussed above in Near-Earth asteroids), apparently have bizarre shapes.

Size and albedo

About 30 asteroids are larger than 200 km. The largest, Ceres, has a diameter of about 940 km (580 miles). It is followed by Vesta at 525 km (325 miles), Pallas at 510 km (320 miles), and (10) Hygiea at 410 km (250 miles). Three asteroids are between 300 and 400 km (190 and 250 miles) in diameter, and about 23 are between 200 and 300 km (120 and 190 miles). It has been estimated that 250 asteroids are larger than 100 km (60 miles) in diameter and perhaps a million are larger than 1 km (0.6 mile). The smallest known asteroids are members of the near-Earth group, some of which approach Earth to within a few hundredths of 1 AU. The smallest routinely observed Earth-approaching asteroids measure about 100 metres (330 feet) across.

The most widely used technique for determining the sizes of asteroids (and other small bodies in the solar system) is that of thermal radiometry. That technique exploits the fact that the infrared radiation (heat) emitted by an asteroid must balance the solar radiation it absorbs. By using a so-called thermal model to balance the measured intensity of infrared radiation with that of radiation at visual wavelengths, investigators are able to derive the diameter of the asteroid. Other remote-sensing techniques—for example, polarimetry, radar, and adaptive optics (techniques for minimizing the distorting effects of Earth’s atmosphere)—also are used, but they are limited to brighter, larger, or closer asteroids.

The only techniques that measure the diameter directly (i.e., without having to model the actual observations) are those of stellar occultation and direct imaging using either advanced instruments on Earth (e.g., large telescopes equipped with adaptive optics or orbiting observatories such as the Hubble Space Telescope) or passing spacecraft. In the method of stellar occultation, investigators measure the length of time that a star disappears from view owing to the passage of an asteroid between the star and Earth. Then, by using the known distance and the rate of motion of the asteroid, they are able to determine the latter’s diameter as projected onto the plane of the sky. For a good diameter measurement, numerous measurements across the asteroid are required, necessitating numerous observers spread out perpendicular to the asteroid’s shadow track over Earth. The majority of those observations have been obtained by amateur astronomers. The necessary techniques for imaging asteroids directly were perfected during the last years of the 20th century. They (and radar) can be used to observe an asteroid over a complete rotation cycle and so measure the three-dimensional shape. Those results have made it possible to calibrate the indirect techniques, thermal radiometry in particular, such that diameter measurements made with thermal radiometry on asteroids larger than about 20 km (12 miles) are thought to be uncertain by less than 10 percent; for smaller asteroids the uncertainty is about 30 percent.

The occultation technique is limited to the relatively rare passages of asteroids in front of stars, and, because the technique measures only one cross section, it is best applied to fairly spherical asteroids. On the other hand, direct imaging (at least to date) has been limited to the nearer, brighter, or larger asteroids. Consequently, the majority of asteroid sizes have been and will probably continue to be obtained with indirect techniques. Direct imaging has allowed the accurate determination of the diameters of about two dozen asteroids, including Ceres, Pallas, Juno, and Vesta, compared with over 150,000 measured with indirect techniques, principally thermal radiometry obtained with NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) satellite.

A property that is closely related to size (and that also provides compositional information) is albedo. Albedo is the ratio between the amount of light actually reflected and that which would be reflected by a uniformly scattering disk of the same size, both observed at opposition. Snow has an albedo of approximately 1, and coal an albedo of about 0.05.

An asteroid’s apparent brightness depends on both its albedo and its diameter as well as on its distance. For example, if Ceres and Vesta could both be observed at the same distance, Vesta would be the brighter of the two by about 15 percent, even though Vesta’s diameter is only a little more than half that of Ceres. Vesta would appear brighter because its albedo is about 0.35, compared with 0.10 for Ceres.

Asteroid albedos range from about 0.02 to more than 0.5 and may be divided into four groups: low (0.02–0.07), intermediate (0.08–0.12), moderate (0.13–0.28), and high (greater than 0.28). After corrections are added for the fact that the brighter and nearer asteroids are favoured for discovery, about 78 percent of known asteroids larger than about 25 km (16 miles) in diameter are found to be low-albedo objects. Most of those are located in the outer half of the main asteroid belt and among the outer-belt populations. More than 95 percent of outer-belt asteroids belong to that group. Roughly 18 percent of known asteroids belong to the moderate-albedo group, the vast majority of which are found in the inner half of the main belt. The intermediate- and high-albedo asteroid groups make up the remaining 4 percent of the population. For the most part, they occupy the same part of the main belt as the moderate-albedo objects.

The albedo distribution for asteroids with diameters less than 25 km is poorly known, because only a small fraction of that population has been characterized. However, if those objects are mostly fragments from a few asteroid families, then their albedo distribution may differ significantly from that of their larger siblings.

Mass and density

Most asteroid masses are low, although present-day observations show that the asteroids measurably perturb the orbits of the major planets. Except for Mars, however, those perturbations are too small to allow the masses of the asteroids in question to be determined. Radio-ranging measurements that were transmitted from the surface of Mars between 1976 and 1980 by the two Viking landers and time-delay radar observations using the Mars Pathfinder lander made it possible to determine distances to Mars with an accuracy of about 10 metres (33 feet). The three largest asteroids—Ceres, Vesta, and Pallas—were found to cause departures of Mars from its predicted orbit in excess of 50 metres (160 feet) over times of 10 years or less. The measured departures, in turn, were used to estimate the masses of the three asteroids. Masses for a number of other asteroids have been determined by noting their effect on the orbits of other asteroids that they approach closely and regularly, on the orbits of the asteroids’ satellites, or on spacecraft orbiting or flying by the asteroids. For those asteroids whose diameters are determined and whose shapes are either spherical or ellipsoidal, their volumes are easily calculated. Knowledge of the mass and volume allows the density to be calculated. For asteroids with satellites, the density can be determined directly from the satellite’s orbit without knowledge of the mass.

The mass of the largest asteroid, Ceres, is 9.3 × 10²⁰ kg, or less than 0.0002 the mass of Earth. The masses of the second and third largest asteroids, Pallas and Vesta, are each only about one-fourth the mass of Ceres. The mass of the entire asteroid belt is roughly three times that of Ceres. Most of the mass in the asteroid belt is concentrated in the larger asteroids, with about 90 percent of the total in asteroids having diameters greater than 100 km. The 10th largest asteroid has only about 1/60 the mass of Ceres. Of the total mass of the asteroids, 90 percent is located in the main belt, 9 percent is in the outer belt (including Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids), and the remainder is distributed among the Hungarias and planet-crossing asteroid populations.

The densities of Ceres, Pallas, and Vesta are 2.1, 2.7, and 3.5 grams per cubic cm, respectively. Those compare with 5.4, 5.2, and 5.5 for Mercury, Venus, and Earth, respectively; 3.9 for Mars; and 3.3 for the Moon. The density of Ceres is similar to that of a class of meteorites known as carbonaceous chondrites, which contain a larger fraction of volatile material than do ordinary terrestrial rocks and hence have a somewhat lower density. The density of Pallas and Vesta are similar to those of Mars and the Moon. Insofar as Ceres, Pallas, and Vesta are typical of asteroids in general, it can be concluded that main-belt asteroids are rocky bodies.

Composition

The combination of albedos and spectral reflectance measurements—specifically, measures of the amount of reflected sunlight at wavelengths between about 0.3 and 1.1 micrometres (μm)—is used to classify asteroids into various taxonomic classes. If sufficient spectral resolution is available, especially extending to wavelengths of about 2.5 μm, those measurements also can be used to infer the composition of the surface reflecting the light. That can be done by comparing the asteroid data with data obtained in the laboratory by using meteorites or terrestrial rocks or minerals.

By the end of the 1980s, spectral reflectance measurements at wavelengths between 0.3 and 1.1 μm were available for about 1,000 asteroids, and albedos had been determined for roughly 2,000. Both types of data were available for about 400 asteroids. The table summarizes the taxonomic classes into which the asteroids are divided on the basis of such data. Starting in the 1990s, the use of detectors with improved resolution and sensitivity for spectral reflectance measurements resulted in revised taxonomies.

Asteroids of the B, C, F, and G classes have low albedos and spectral reflectances similar to those of carbonaceous chondritic meteorites and their constituent assemblages produced by hydrothermal alteration or metamorphism of carbonaceous precursor materials. Some C-class asteroids are known to have hydrated minerals on their surfaces, whereas Ceres, a G-class asteroid, probably has water present as a layer of permafrost. K- and S-class asteroids have moderate albedos and spectral reflectances similar to the stony iron meteorites, and they are known to contain significant amounts of silicates and metals, including the minerals olivine and pyroxene on their surfaces. M-class asteroids are moderate-albedo objects, may have significant amounts of nickel-iron metal in their surface material, and exhibit spectral reflectances similar to the nickel-iron meteorites (see iron meteorite). Paradoxically, however, some M-class asteroids have spectral features owing to the presence of hydrated minerals. D-class asteroids have low albedos and show reflectance spectra similar to the spectrum exhibited by a relatively new type of carbonaceous chondrite, represented by the Tagish Lake meteorite, which fell in January 2000.

P- and T-class asteroids have low albedos and no known meteorite or naturally occurring mineralogical counterparts, but they may contain a large fraction of carbon polymers or organic-rich silicates or both in their surface material. R-class asteroids are very rare. Their surface material has been identified as being most consistent with a pyroxene- and olivine-rich composition analogous to the pyroxene-olivine achondrite meteorites. The E-class asteroids have the highest albedos and have spectral reflectances that match those of the enstatite achondrite meteorites.

V-class asteroids have reflectance properties closely matching those of one particular type of basaltic achondritic meteorite, the eucrites. The match is so good that some believe that the eucrites exhibited in museums are chips from the surface of a V-class asteroid that were knocked off during a major collision. The V class had been thought to be confined to the large asteroid Vesta and over 16,000 Vesta-family asteroids with diameters less than 10 km (6 miles), plus a few even smaller Earth-approaching asteroids (collectively referred to as “Vestoids”), until 2000, when asteroid (1459) Magnya (diameter about 17 km [11 miles])—located at 3.15 AU from the Sun, compared with 2.36 AU for Vesta—was discovered also to have a basaltic surface. There are about 100 Vesta family members between 5 and 10 km (3 and 6 miles) in diameter and only about 4 with diameters greater than 10 km.

Among the larger asteroids (those with diameters greater than about 25 km [16 km]), the C-class asteroids are the most common, accounting for about 65 percent by number. That is followed, in decreasing order, by the S class, at 15 percent; the D class, at 8 percent; and the P and M classes, at 4 percent each. The remaining classes constitute less than 4 percent of the population by number. In fact, there are no A-, E-, or Q-class asteroids in that size range, only one member of the R class, and between two and five members of each of the B, F, G, K, and T classes.

The distribution of the taxonomic classes throughout the belt for the larger asteroids (diameter greater than 100 km [60 miles]) is highly structured. However, smaller asteroids in that region are observed to be more compositionally diverse with size and distance. The reasons for this are imperfectly understood.