How Sunlight Pushes Asteroids
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Captions
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- Yarkovsky_stylized_poster.png (1920x1080) [1.0 MB]
- Yarkovsky_stylized_poster_thm.png (80x40) [8.4 KB]
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Rotating asteroids have a tough time sticking to their orbits. Their surfaces heat up during the day and cool down at night, giving off radiation that can act as a sort of mini-thruster. This force, called the Yarkovsky effect, can cause rotating asteroids to drift widely over time, making it hard for scientists to predict their long-term risk to Earth.
Watch this video on the NASAexplorer YouTube channel.
For complete transcript, click here.
When sunlight strikes a rotating asteroid, the dayside heats up; as the asteroid turns, the night side cools and releases the heat, exerting a small thrust that can change the asteroid's direction over time. In order to learn more about this process on asteroid Bennu, NASA is sending a spacecraft called OSIRIS-REx to make detailed observations of Bennu's shape, brightness, and surface features. These factors are thought to influence the Yarkovsky effect, and understanding how will enable scientists to better predict the orbit of Bennu and other near-Earth asteroids.
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- yarkovsky_effect_realistic_2015.mov (1920x1080) [108.3 MB]
- NASA_PODCAST_yarkovsky_effect_realistic_2015_ipod_sm.mp4 (320x240) [2.8 MB]
Images
- Yarkovsky_Effect_realistic_poster_print.jpg (1024x576) [27.4 KB]
- Yarkovsky_Effect_realistic_poster.png (1920x1080) [296.3 KB]
ANIMATION - Sunlight alters the orbit of a rotating asteroid via the Yarkovsky effect.
For More Information
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
Animator
- Chris Smith (KBRwyle)
Writer
- Chris Smith (KBRwyle)
Scientist
- Edward Beshore (The University of Arizona)
Producers
- Chris Smith (KBRwyle)
- Dan Gallagher (KBRwyle)
Narrator
- Chris Smith (KBRwyle)
Missions
This visualization is related to the following missions:Series
This visualization can be found in the following series:Tapes
This visualization originally appeared on the following tapes:- None
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