Rubble-Pile Near Earth Objects: Insights from Granular Physics

Most Near Earth Objects (NEOs) are composed of fractured rock, sometimes highly fractured and porous, and they have come to be known as rubble piles (Britt 2001; Fujiwara et al. 2006). The constituent particles, ranging from millimeters up to tens of meters, are weakly held together as an aggregate by a combination of both gravitational and van der Waals forces, which can be of comparable strength (Scheers et al. 2010). Future missions to these rubble NEOs, whether human or robotic, will need to operate in such a way that they can safely and successfully probe a fragile object. Of key importance is the ability to predict and control the circumstances under which the NEO material will remain intact or become unstable during activities such as digging, sample-collection, anchoring, or lift-off.

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