Authors: Lei Lan Mo Yang Hexi Baoyin Junfeng Li
Publish Date: 2017/01/24
Volume: 362, Issue: 2, Pages: 38-
Abstract
In this paper we develop a methodology to study the periodic dynamics of irregular heterogeneous celestial bodies Heterogeneous bodies are not scarce in space It has been found that bodies such as 4 Vesta 624 Hektor 87 Sylvia 16 Psyche and 25143 Itokawa may all have varied internal structures They can be divided into largescale and smallscale cases The varied internal structures of largescale bodies always result from gradient pressure inside which leads to compactness differences of the inner material However the heterogeneity of a smallscale body is always reflected by the different densities of different areas which may originate from collision formation from multiple objects We propose a modeling procedure for the heterogeneous bodies derived from the conventional polyhedral method and then compare its dynamical characteristics with those of the homogeneous case It is found that zerovelocity curves positions of equilibrium points types of bifurcations in the continuation of the orbital family and the stabilities of periodic orbits near the heterogeneous body are different from those in the homogeneous case The suborbicular orbits near the equatorial plane are potential parking orbits for a future mission so we discuss the switching of the orbital stability of the family because it has fundamental significance to orbit maintenance and operations around actual asteroids
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