Laboratory Impact Experiments to Study Asteroid Collisional Disruption as a Function of Size and Shape in the Strength Regime

Abstract

Laboratory impact experiments on meter-scale targets were conducted to explore collisional outcomes pertinent to the problem of hazardous asteroid mitigation. In particular, the primary aim of the experiments was to improve our understanding of how the energy needed to fragment and disrupt an asteroid scales with size, such that mitigation strategies could better incorporate this parameter. Previous researchers found that this critical disruption energy decreased with increasing target size. A secondary goal of the research was to investigate post-impact other factors that might be affected by target size-scaling such as ejecta translational and rotational velocities. Preliminary results will be presented for these parameters such that comparisons to the asteroid population can be made in the future.