Meteoroid impacts onto asteroids: a competitor for Yarkovsky and YORP

Abstract

<Abridged> The impact of a meteoroid onto an asteroid transfers linear and angular momentum to the larger body, which may affect its orbit and its rotational state. Here we show that the meteoroid environment of our Solar System can have an effect on small asteroids that is comparable to the Yarkovsky and Yarkovsky-O'Keefe-Radzievskii-Paddack (YORP) effects under certain conditions. The momentum content of the meteoroids themselves is expected to generate an effect much smaller than that of the Yarkovsky effect. However, momentum transport by ejecta may increase the net effective force by two orders of magnitude for impacts into bare rock surfaces. This result is sensitive to the extrapolation of laboratory microcratering experiment results to real meteoroid-asteroid collisions and needs further study. If this extrapolation holds, then meteoroid impacts are more important to the dynamics of small asteroids than had previously been considered.