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Planetary science

Spin control for asteroids

Nature volume 425, pages 131–132 (2003)Cite this article

Random collisions between asteroids would seem to cause their spin axes to be tilted in all directions. Surprisingly, the gentle recoil force of thermal re-radiation may bring their spin axes into alignment.

Influencing the public perception of a political story might seem like small potatoes compared with controlling the spin of the mountain-sized rocks in space that we call asteroids. These leftover building blocks from the era of planetary formation have undergone random and relentless collisions that have sculpted their shapes over the past 4.5 billion years. These bumps in the night should result in random orientations of the asteroids' spin axes, yet observations have revealed unexpected spin alignments1. On page 147 of this issue, Vokrouhlický et al.2 show how the slow but steady recoil force of thermal re-radiation can win out over the heavy hand of collisions in controlling the direction of asteroid spins.

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Figure 1: The Yarkovsky effect.
Figure 2: Spin up, spin down.

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  1. Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, 02139, Massachusetts, USA

    Richard P. Binzel

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  1. Richard P. Binzel
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Binzel, R. Spin control for asteroids. Nature 425, 131–132 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/425131a

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