Digital 3D shapes suitable for the description of meteoroids

Some processes in the physics of small solar system bodies depend on the detailed shape of the body. One of them is the YORP effect, which affects the rotation of asteroids and can lead to rotational bursting. The YORP effect can be modelled because the shape of asteroids can be determined from spacecraft images, radar observations, or inversions of asteroid light curves. A similar effect, caused by the reflection of solar radiation from an irregularly shaped body, affects the rotation of meteoroids. However, this effect is very difficult to model because we are not able to determine the shapes of meteoroids.

In this presentation we show our approach to obtain shapes suitable for characterizing meteoroids. For meteoroids of asteroidal origin, we simulated their formation during a collision in the main belt by fragmentation a sample of an ordinary meteorite using explosive charge technique and performed the digitization of fragments. To describe the cometary meteoroids, we used the shapes of interplanetary dust particles determined by X-ray microtomography. Finally, we show a comparison of the ability of the two types of shapes (asteroidal vs. cometary) to be spun up by the solar radiation.