The opportune location for a kinetic impactor to disrupt potentially hazardous asteroids

Abstract

Several studies have proposed a way to mitigate a possible threat given by an asteroid approach to the Earth. However, the possibility to deviate or break such bodies depends mainly on their physical characteristics. Our work aims to determine the best region for human interference in the object's trajectory. It means that we will search for the region of minimal internal forces that keep the body as a single unit, which is the best point for the asteroid breakup. We report that the consideration of the body resistance, while it belongs to the strength regime size, shall be the key to find the best location for an interception. We use the Johnson-Kendall-Roberts (JKR) theory to add adhesive contact forces between the target body's micro-sized particle constituents. We also solve the balanced equation for tidal due to Earth for the body, and we consider it with and without adhesion forces. We see that the best approach region happens while the self-gravity is minimized by the Earth's gravity, which occurs when the body is still held in one piece by the inter-particles forces. It means that we do not expect a natural breakup. Nevertheless, these minimum adhesion forces points are the best options to target a spacecraft for a collision that breaks the asteroids if it is necessary to do so.