BULLETIN
Asteroid behaviour reveals their inside story
An undergraduate project by a student at MIT could help researchers map the interiors of asteroids that pose a collision risk with Earth. Physics major Jack Dinsmore simulated how the orbit and spin of an asteroid changes when it passes close to Earth and noticed it strongly depended on the shape and physical properties of the asteroid.
Developing the idea further, he realised the changes carried information about the asteroid’s internal properties too. By measuring these small variations when an asteroid passes close to a large object, such as Earth, it may be possible to determine what the asteroid’s internal structure is like. One important use of this could be in monitoring potentially hazardous asteroids, such as Apophis.
“Apophis will miss Earth in 2029 and scientists have cleared it for its next few encounters, but we can’t clear it forever,” says Dinsmore, now a graduate student at Stanford University. “It’s good to understand the nature of this particular asteroid, because if we ever need to redirect it, it’s important to understand what it’s made of.”
For more about asteroid-deflecting planetary defence plans, read our article about the DART mission. www.mit.edu