The common perception of asteroid death is that of plunging into the sun in one final blaze of glory. However, a new study by researchers at the University of Hawaii reveals the real ending for these Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) - a long, drawn out fizzle that takes place much farther from the sun than scientists originally thought. This new discovery explains numerous observations in the recent years that scientists struggled to explain.
Asteroids are categorized as NEOs when their smallest distance from the sun during their orbit is less than 1.3 times the Earth-sun distance. In the current study, the team used data on almost 9,000 NEOs detected in approximately 100,000 images taken over the past eight years from the Catalina Sky Survey (CSS). Using this data, the team created a new population model using new software that portrayed the best-ever population representation thus far by combining the CSS data with novel mathematical techniques.
Despite the accuracy of this model, it accounted for 10 times as many NEOs on orbits that approach the sun than we know of. After this discovery, the team spent a year analyzing and verifying their calculations before discovering the root of the problem, which lies in our assumption of how the solar system works.
The team discovered that their model would match observations if NEOs were destroyed close to the sun long before a collision as opposed to plunging into them. After testing this idea by eliminating asteroids that spend too much time within a 10 solar diameter distance from the sun, they found a great deal of agreement with the model and the observed population of NEOs.
"The discovery that asteroids must be breaking up when they approach too close to the sun was surprising and that's why we spent so much time verifying our calculations," Robert Jedicke, who participated in the research, said in a press release.
The discovery also helps to explain other discrepancies between predictions and observations of NEOs in our solar system, including an earlier finding that NEOs that approach the sun at closer distances are brighter than those that farther stay away.
The findings were published in the Feb. 17 issue of Nature.
