GRAINS · Gravitation of Rubble-pile Asteroid with Internal N-body Structure
„Хоризонт 2020“ — Действия „Мария Склодовска-Кюри“
- Период
- 2018-06-01 → 2020-05-31
- Финансиране от ЕС
- 176 204 €
- Участници
- 2
- Схема
- MSCA-IF-GF
Линиите свързват координатора с партньорите.
Накратко на български
Астероидите от тип „купа камъни“ се анализират чрез компютърни симулации, за да се разбере как е изградена вътрешността им. Тези знания помагат при планирането на мисии за добив на ресурси и при защитата на Земята от евентуални сблъсъци.
Кратко обяснение, генерирано от езиков модел по текста на CORDIS. Оригиналът е по-долу.
Резултати накратко
Gravitation of Rubble-pile Asteroid with Internal N-body Structure
"In the last decades, both remote and in-situ observations have brought evidence to support the idea that small and medium-size (up to few hundreds of km) asteroids are made of loosely consolidated material, namely ""rubble piles"". The idea behind GRAINS is to study these peculiar celestial object by means of numerical simulations of gravitational aggregation and granular dynamics. The goal is to gain insights on the properties, dynamics and evolution of these objects. In particular, their internal structure is largely unknown, due to the lack of data caused by technological limitations in assessing them through remote observations and by the limited number of in-situ measurement opportunities. Asteroids are of crucial importance for our society. They offer a unique and low-cost opportunity for deep-space technological development and represent the natural pathway for the human and robotic exploration of our Solar System. They have been identified worldwide by the major Space Angencies as the next step in the path towards the human exploration of Mars. In the last few years, asteroids have been identified as potential resources and asteroid mining has become a focus topic in the worldwide industrial community. Mining and harvesting resources from asteroids would be important not only for returing these materials to Earth, but also to provide low-cost and in-orbit fuel to support the exploration of our Solar System. Finally, asteroids represent a singular threat for humanity. In the past years, all major Space Angencies have started planetary defense offices, to monitor the trajectory of these objects and to help mitigating the risk of impacts. The knowledge of asteroids and their interior is crucial to plan effective planetary defense mitigation actions, to exploit their resources and to fully leverage the opportunities they offer."
Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз
Цел на проекта
The study of asteroids addresses a number of questions relevant for space engineers, planetary scientists and physicists. Near Earth Asteroids are a great opportunity for technological, human exploration missions and for asteroids resources exploitation. Sadly, they can also represent a threat for the planet. The scientific and technological exploitation and the implementation of mitigation actions for hazardous asteroids rely upon our knowledge of their properties. Remote surveys play a fundamental role to estimate asteroid properties, but they can only provide limited information: there is no mean to reconstruct their internal structure. GRAINS addresses such problem through N-body numerical simulations of gravitational aggregation. This method is suitable to estimate the internal properties of rubble-pile asteroids: gravitational aggregates with very low tensile strength and high level of porosity. The study of aggregation phenomena currently relies on codes optimized for a large number of mutually interacting particles, regardless of their individual shape and rigid body motion. Although not relevant for many applications, this limitation could be relevant for the case of asteroids, as suggested by results of granular dynamics in terrestrial engineering applications. The latter are commonly studied using multi-body codes, able to simulate contact interactions between a large number of complex-shaped bodies, but not suitable for gravitational dynamics. The goal of the project is to joint the advantages of both classes of codes into a single implementation, able to reproduce N-body gravitational dynamics between a large number of complex-shaped rigid bodies. GRAINS plans to use the implemented code to study relevant aggregation scenarios and to assess the accuracy of obtained asteroid models. The outcome of the GRAINS project will be a new and powerful tool to study asteroids and their internal properties based on information available from remote observations.
Оригинален текст от CORDIS (на английски).
Участници
- POLITECNICO DI MILANO · MilanoКоординаторИталия
- NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION · WashingtonСъединени щати
Връзки
Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз