American Journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics

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The Vulcanoid Asteroids: Past, Present and Future

Received: 10 July 2017    Accepted: 25 July 2017    Published: 25 August 2017
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Abstract

A review and discussion of both the historical and contemporaneous ideas pertaining to the putative population of Vulcanoid asteroids is presented. Current observations indicate that no objects larger than between 5 to 10 km in diameter reside in the orbital stability zone between 0.06 and 0.2 AU from the Sun, and that, at best, only a small population of Vulcanoid asteroids might exist at the present epoch. We review the physical processes (sublimation mass loss, evolution of the Sun’s luminosity, Poynting-Robertson drag, the Yarkovsky effect, the YORP effect, unipolar heating and collisions) that will control the lifetime against destruction of objects, either primordial or present-day, that chance to reside in the Vulcanoid region. It is argued that there are no overriding and/or absolute physical mechanisms that fully rule-out the present-day existence of a small Vulcanoid population, but we note that the gap between what the observations allow and what the theoretical models deem possible is closing rapidly.

DOI 10.11648/j.ajaa.20170503.12
Published in American Journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics (Volume 5, Issue 3, May 2017)
Page(s) 28-41
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Vulcanoid Asteroids, Orbital Evolution, Thermal Processing, Detection Methods

References
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Author Information
  • Campion College, The University of Regina, Regina, Canada; Department of Physics, The University of Regina, Regina, Canada

  • Department of Physics, The University of Regina, Regina, Canada

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  • APA Style

    Martin Beech, Lowell Peltier. (2017). The Vulcanoid Asteroids: Past, Present and Future. American Journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 5(3), 28-41. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajaa.20170503.12

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    Martin Beech; Lowell Peltier. The Vulcanoid Asteroids: Past, Present and Future. Am. J. Astron. Astrophys. 2017, 5(3), 28-41. doi: 10.11648/j.ajaa.20170503.12

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    Martin Beech, Lowell Peltier. The Vulcanoid Asteroids: Past, Present and Future. Am J Astron Astrophys. 2017;5(3):28-41. doi: 10.11648/j.ajaa.20170503.12

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ajaa.20170503.12,
      author = {Martin Beech and Lowell Peltier},
      title = {The Vulcanoid Asteroids: Past, Present and Future},
      journal = {American Journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics},
      volume = {5},
      number = {3},
      pages = {28-41},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ajaa.20170503.12},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajaa.20170503.12},
      eprint = {https://download.sciencepg.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ajaa.20170503.12},
      abstract = {A review and discussion of both the historical and contemporaneous ideas pertaining to the putative population of Vulcanoid asteroids is presented. Current observations indicate that no objects larger than between 5 to 10 km in diameter reside in the orbital stability zone between 0.06 and 0.2 AU from the Sun, and that, at best, only a small population of Vulcanoid asteroids might exist at the present epoch. We review the physical processes (sublimation mass loss, evolution of the Sun’s luminosity, Poynting-Robertson drag, the Yarkovsky effect, the YORP effect, unipolar heating and collisions) that will control the lifetime against destruction of objects, either primordial or present-day, that chance to reside in the Vulcanoid region. It is argued that there are no overriding and/or absolute physical mechanisms that fully rule-out the present-day existence of a small Vulcanoid population, but we note that the gap between what the observations allow and what the theoretical models deem possible is closing rapidly.},
     year = {2017}
    }
    

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    T1  - The Vulcanoid Asteroids: Past, Present and Future
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    AB  - A review and discussion of both the historical and contemporaneous ideas pertaining to the putative population of Vulcanoid asteroids is presented. Current observations indicate that no objects larger than between 5 to 10 km in diameter reside in the orbital stability zone between 0.06 and 0.2 AU from the Sun, and that, at best, only a small population of Vulcanoid asteroids might exist at the present epoch. We review the physical processes (sublimation mass loss, evolution of the Sun’s luminosity, Poynting-Robertson drag, the Yarkovsky effect, the YORP effect, unipolar heating and collisions) that will control the lifetime against destruction of objects, either primordial or present-day, that chance to reside in the Vulcanoid region. It is argued that there are no overriding and/or absolute physical mechanisms that fully rule-out the present-day existence of a small Vulcanoid population, but we note that the gap between what the observations allow and what the theoretical models deem possible is closing rapidly.
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