Planetary and Space Science 206 (2021) 105305

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Planetary and Space Science

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/pss

The opportune location for a kinetic impactor to disrupt potentially

hazardous asteroids
Ana Helena Fernandes Guimar~aes *, Safwan Aljbaae,
Antonio Fernando Bertachini de Almeida Prado
Division of Space Mechanics and Control, INPE, Avenida dos Astronautas, 1758, S~
ao Jose dos Campos, SP, Brazil

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Several studies have proposed a way to mitigate a possible threat given by an asteroid approach to the Earth.
Asteroids However, the possibility to deviate or break such bodies depends mainly on their physical characteristics. Our
Fragmentation work aims to determine the best region for human interference in the object's trajectory. It means that we will
Adhesion
search for the region of minimal internal forces that keep the body as a single unit, which is the best point for the
Aggregates
JKR theory
asteroid breakup. We report that the consideration of the body resistance, while it belongs to the strength regime
Planetary defense size, shall be the key to find the best location for an interception. We use the Johnson-Kendall-Roberts (JKR)
theory to add adhesive contact forces between the target body's micro-sized particle constituents. We also solve
the balanced equation for tidal due to Earth for the body, and we consider it with and without adhesion forces. We
see that the best approach region happens while the self-gravity is minimized by the Earth's gravity, which occurs
when the body is still held in one piece by the inter-particles forces. It means that we do not expect a natural
breakup. Nevertheless, these minimum adhesion forces points are the best options to target a spacecraft for a
collision that breaks the asteroids if it is necessary to do so.

1. Introduction missions of mitigation using “impactors” require many years of prepa-

A real threat to our planet, Earth, can be caused by a subclass of Near-
Earth-Objects (NEOs) known as PHAs (Potentially Hazardous Asteroids).
They are objects that can make Earth approaches within 0.05 AU (the
Sun-Earth average distance). Such objects may impact the Earth, causing
significant damage if the event has sufficient energy. An example of such
an event is the impact that made the crater in Chixculub (Bottke et al.,
2007).
There are several options to approach the problem of mitigation of
asteroids' like the inclusion of a second body to act as a Gravity Tractor to
slightly change the asteroid's course (Venditti et al., 2020, e.g.); the
natural splitting due to the Earth's gravity field (Sharma et al., 2006;
Albers and Spahn, 2006; Guimar~aes et al., 2012; Sanchez and Scheeres,
2014; Scheeres et al., 2010), among others. Of course, this last option has
problems, like the risk of collisions of the pieces left from the breakup.
However, it may reduce the collision effects and may be a necessary
option, depending on the situation. Another possibility is the impact of a
spacecraft on the asteroid. According to Hefele et al. (2020), possible
ration. If an earlier detection happens, the specialists would have more
time to prepare strategies to minimize the problems. Hussein et al. (2016)
and Wie et al. (2017) evaluated mitigation techniques for threats with
short waning time. NASA/JPL established an automated impact predic-
tion system called Sentry1 to continually scan new potentially hazardous
small bodies (SBs) (Chodas, 2018). According to its potential for signif-
icant impact, a threat has to be analyzed, appraise the range of its effects,
and develop strategies to mitigate effects on human welfare (Landis and
Johnson, 2019). So, if we choose to send a spacecraft to crash and disrupt
the body, we need to ensure that the mission succeeds, and for that, we
need to do a detailed study before making a decision. The moment one
may choose to interfere is to have a higher chance to hit the body so
severely that their pieces will be small enough to minimize damages on
Earth. We intend to show how to determine the best location in space for
a breakup and why it is favorable.
Several studies on the strength of SBs have been conducted, focusing
on the classical theory of elasticity and its complexity. Aggarwal and
Oberbeck (1974), for example, demonstrated that there might be more

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: ana.fernandes@inpe.br (A.H. Fernandes Guimar~aes).
1
https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/sentry/.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pss.2021.105305
Received 30 July 2020; Received in revised form 6 May 2021; Accepted 8 July 2021
Available online 16 July 2021
0032-0633/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
A.H. Fernandes Guimar~
aes et al.
than one mutually exclusive modes of fracture for the mechanism of tidal
fission, which occurs when a solid body impacts or orbits another, and
that the particular mode that occurs depends on the size and strength of
the body. The fracture may begin on the surface and progress to the
center, or vice versa. Their analysis painted a vivid picture of fracture
propagation for each breakup mode as the body's distance from the
planet decreased, demonstrating that elasticity has no effect on SBs but
increases for larger bodies. They concluded that the body's size and
strength determine the type of fracture. Dobrovolskis (1990) introduced
new considerations about stress, strain, and breakup in massive satellites
and stray bodies subject to tidal perturbations. The author examined
crack propagation, and the breakup criteria on his work occurred ac-
cording to the size, strength, and object's composition. Davidsson (1999)
has derived expressions for the Roche limit of cometary nuclei when
passing close to massive bodies. The expressions account for the radius,
density, material strength, rotation period, and spin axis orientation of
the body, and they handle both tensile and shear failure.
Small celestial bodies can be monolithic or aggregated, spherical,
ellipsoidal, or other shapes in general. They may have a dense center
covered with aggregates, not having a uniform density.
We then search for the best location, the region where one can
interfere to modify the potentially hazardous scenario. The external en-
vironment's action can indirectly impact one body by a force field action,
i.e., due to the tidal stress. It is well known that the tidal disruption of a
small celestial body happens when it reaches its Roche limit. This limit is
determined by the distance where the disturber's gravitational attraction
overcomes the body's internal forces, and, precisely at this point of
imbalance between the external forces and its material strength, the
rupture occurs. We perform an analysis of the integrity for putative
asteroid around its Roche limit, first considering that only the self-gravity
is holding the body together and then taking into account the strength of
the body.
The internal forces composing the body's strength depend on the
body's mechanical properties. The contact forces hold the body together
for sizes up to when the self-gravity takes over. Therefore, we first
divided the asteroid's resistance into a strength-dominated and gravity-
dominated regime (Housen and Holsapple, 1990; Love and Ahrens,
1996; Benz and Asphaug, 1999; Guimar~aes et al., 2012). We assume that
the small body's constituents (smaller marbles) are stuck by adhesive
contacts (one of the body's binding force) and considered unit cells
(monomers composed) as an initial guess. We applied the
Johnson-Kendall-Roberts (JKR) theory (Johnson et al., 1971) to estimate
the body stress action used for the strength regime calculation. We
explain this approach in the next section. The adhesion between the
constituents is not far from the chondrites' reality as a composed of
multiple materials. This material may be assumed to be like our concrete
using primitive cement, the silicates, and having the chondrules as the
coarse aggregates (Anders, 1965).
First, we analyze the distance where an asteroid has a rupture due to
tidal forces when assumed to be supported only by its self-gravity. Then,
we compared the resulting stress against the neighbor's body's gravita-
tional pull after adding the adhesive force to the self-gravity. We kept the
determination of Roche limit simple and use tidally-looked bodies with
no self-rotation. The disturbed mass's uniqueness is maintained as long as
the material's strength can overcome the external forces' action. We
tested the rupture for different body sections and a broad range of mass
ratios (μ), from 10
17 to 1. After several approaches to achieve this
work's primary goal, we found the best location to interact with the target
body to break it.
2. Asteroids in strength regime
SBs in the Solar System are the remnants of the early stages of plan-
etary formation, so they are leftovers of the building blocks accreted to
form the planets. They come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes,
resulting from the impact and breakup dance deriving from evolutional
2
Planetary and Space Science 206 (2021) 105305
paths over billions of years (Yu et al., 2017). Scheeres (2016) considered
that collisions between Main Belt asteroids are the primary process that
changes these bodies over time. When the object goes to smaller sizes,
under 10 km, other processes become essential and serve to migrate these
bodies through the solar system, serving as a source for the NEA, the
objects of our concern among the SBs.
For smaller objects, the material strength of a body is a crucial
parameter to avoid rupture. In general, SBs objects show strength, and
their mechanical properties undoubtedly play a significant role in their
collisional evolution (Holsapple, 2009). The material capacity to with-
stand particular stresses, strains, or loads defines strength. The material's
cohesion2 is taken into account, especially for the objects under the
so-called strength regime (Scheeres et al., 2010, see). The material's force
dominates the regime's threshold, and the gravitational domain is
defined when self-gravity overtakes adhesion.
2.1. Material definition
It is necessary to constrain our research considering the composition
of the asteroid, which can be provided by spectral analysis of the target.3
The main groups of asteroids in our Solar System are S-, C-, and X-
complex. The first group links to the ordinary chondrites (OC), the most
numerous, accounting for more than 80% of the falls on Earth (Zolensky
et al., 2018). Hence, we will consider that our fictitious asteroids are OCs.
Flynn et al. (2018) presented a review of the physical properties for the
OC among other chondritic groups. Since many of these physical prop-
erties, such as compressive and tensile strengths, are dependent on the
sample's porosity, indeed, the authors argue it is desirable to have various
of these physical properties measured on the same sample of the mete-
orite. The average and bulk densities of OC falls are 3.26 and 3.6 g cm
3,
respectively. They cited the work of Sasso et al. (2009), which considers
that some meteorites preserve evidence of their pre-accretional porosity,
typically in the form of interstitial pore spaces. Even having this point
tested for many specimens, the question to determine which would be the
best value for an asteroid remains. Zolensky et al. (2018) emphasized
that these material properties were all measured on a specimen from
relatively sturdy rocks, which survived atmospheric entry. However, the
properties of asteroids regoliths should be very different, and they are
still poorly understood. Besides, we imagined that many collisions ag-
gregation formed the OC, and due to the shakes, the smaller material
went to the center. Consider this an idea to explain the possible boulder's
samples' surface as results from the Brazilian Nuts Effect, where larger
particles always get shaken up, eventually getting on the top (outward
radial direction) of the smaller ones. A study about how this effect works
in spherical bodies over time is presented in Perera et al. (2016).
The OC is rich in silicates (Zolensky et al., 2018), so we will use this
materials' properties to include adhesion into our calculations, as done by
Gunkelmann et al. (2017) for the shell in chondrules. High-performance
concrete specimen rupture may occur at the crushed stones (coarse ag-
gregates), meaning that the strength increases with the use of smaller
materials, enriching cohesion and adhesion, which turns the compound
more robust (Aïtcin, 1998; Kılıç et al., 2008; Kristombu Baduge et al.,
2020, e.g.). Analog to concrete, the use of silicates' material properties for
chondrites is possible since we assumed that the aggregate's strength is
very dependent on its fine elements. For this reason, the consideration of
2
We call here adhesion instead of cohesion because we understand adhesion
is only for different materials and different defined surfaces. Adhesion is related
to the glue-mechanism between surfaces that do not merge, while cohesion is
connected to two surfaces' coalescence, which defines a new surface with the
same tension properties they already had as individuals.
3
One of the latest and more widely used taxonomical classification of aster-
oids was introduced by Bus and Binzel, (2002), identifying 26 classes of aster-
oids based on the Small Main-Belt Asteroid Spectroscopic Survey (SMASSII – htt
p://smass.mit.edu/smass.html).
A.H. Fernandes Guimar~
aes et al. Planetary and Space Science 206 (2021) 105305

the silicates' properties is possible for chondrites, and we will apply the interconnected spheres, which makes the use of JKR theory plausible. In
steps of Johnson et al. (1971) with their theory knowing as JKR theory, the introduction, we referred to investigations that showed that a body
estimating this “glue” between the body's constituents, as mentioned in failure by stress might occur in the middle (from the edge towards the
the Introduction. We will explain in the next section 2.2 how we took center). Besides, in the literature, the specific energy required for
adhesion into account in this work. breaking is defined as the energy to left the largest fragment with half of
the mass of the original target object (Love and Ahrens, 1996, e.g.). Based
on this idea of the remaining half, Guimar~aes et al. (2012) considered
2.2. Adhesive contacts: breaking
that the minimum energy would be precisely the division of a body just in
halves.
As stated in Hestroffer et al. (2019), it is believed that a large pro-
As already mentioned, aggregates are a composition of particles
portion of small bodies consist of gravitational aggregates (‘rubble piles')
‘glued’ together by the inter-particles force, the adhesion, as presented in
with or without low internal cohesion, with varying macroporosity,
Eq. (3). This section is about asteroid resistivity failure. We choose the
surface properties, and topography. The authors defend the idea that it is
regular, crystal-like packing, i.e., the face-centered cubic (fcc) and body-
through theories of granular mechanics that these bodies are best
centered cubic (bcc) structured bodies to emulate the OCs. The particle
described. Our asteroid model is a solid body. While we take the inner
aggregates are all structured in cubic packs. A similar idea for a semi-
body mimicking the body's compact arrangement using crystal-like
analytic approach was considered in Guimar~aes et al. (2012) (see
structures formed by small spherical marbles inner, on the surface, we
Fig. 1 for the models formation).
can eventually have boulders explained, as said before, by the Brazilian
As a first approach for the necessary force to disrupt a multiple par-
Nuts Effect as explained in Perera et al. (2016). In this case, we consider
ticle aggregate, and not only a particle pair, we consider a sharp and
the adhesion as a binding force between the particles using the JKR
planar split with a section area S(x), where x is the body's longitudinal
(Johnson et al., 1971) theory to quantify it (Brilliantov et al., 2007;
axis. The use of a known packing favors the calculations to be done
Bodrova et al., 2012; Guimar~aes et al., 2012).
analytically and gives the body's strength force approach. The packings
Asteroids link us directly to aggregation and fragmentation processes
have well-defined parameters for a unit cell, e.g., the number of con-
from birth, and the interparticle force is a combination of elastic rebound,
stituents (monomers), N; ^ the coordination number (number of contacts
dissipation due to viscous deformations, and adhesion caused by the
molecular forces of Van-der-Waals. Brilliantov et al. (2007) pointed out of a single constituent), CN, and volume pre-factor, ^v (the volume de-
that the JKR theory is accurate enough for a wide range of practical pends on so size – considering monomers). These characteristics for bcc
applications and suitable for rational analysis due to its simplicity. The and fcc are presented in Table 1.
Tabor parameter characterizes the JKR theory applicability. Its value Now, at the cut section area S(x), the total number of broken contacts
must be  5 and is given by is found to be Ccut ¼ N  C2N , where the number of constituents in the cut is
given by the division of the total section area by the unit cell face area,

1=3
16D2 γ 2 seff thus, N ¼ SðxÞ ^ The face area of a unit cell, ^v2=3 s2 , depends on the
 N.
μT ¼ : (1) ^v
2=3
s2o o
9z0 3 constituent size so. The coordination number, CN, is taken as half because
each contact happens between two constituents – disregarding the bor-
where s1 and s2 are the radii of each of the particles, and seff ¼ s1s2/(s1 þ
ders. Hence, the force of separation at the cut section becomes
s2) denotes the effective particle size. The particles' material properties
are described by a single parameter D  (3/2)(1
ν2)/Y, where Y and ν Fsep ¼ Ccut  F ð2Þ
sep
are the bulk material constants, Young modulus, and Poisson ratio,
3 πγ (4)
respectively. z0 is the characteristic atomic-scale (Brilliantov et al., ^ N
¼ SðxÞ NC
2007), and γ is twice the surface energy per unit area of a solid in a 8 so ^v 2=3
vacuum.
We consider that the equation above gives the material strength,
Later, we need to know the separation force between a bonded pair of
which is the body's resistivity against the breaking.
particles. Observe that if the material parameters do not change, this
theory's applicability will depend on the seff, meaning that it depends on
2.3. Transition radius
the particles' size. Since we will consider mono-sized particles, s1 and s2
are equal, and we will refer to both of them as so. The adhesive forces,
Before we go further on the calculations of a possible breaking win-
leading to aggregation, are stronger for small particles (Chokshi et al.,
dow for human action(s), it is necessary to determine the range size of
1993). When particles collide in the absence of adhesion, the compres-
those objects that we are considering. The objects up to a specific size
sion is larger than the situation where adhesion is presented. An equation
have their resistivity given more by adhesion than self-gravity. After that,
for the adhesion force is given as follows:
self-gravity takes over the adhesion force.
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi Guimar~aes et al. (2012) presented an approach to determine the
a3 ð6π γÞ 3=2
FðaÞ ¼
a ; (2) transition between the strength and gravitational regimes for a spherical
Dseff D
body, based on the same assumption and JKR theory inputs from
where a is the contact area between the particles, which is directly
important to quantify the adhesion. When the particles are in static
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
equilibrium a ¼ aeq ¼ 3 6π Dγs2eff , and when the particles are pulled
apart, a ¼ asep ¼ 1/4aeq. Hence,

3
F ð2Þ
sep ¼
π γ seff (3)
2
F ð2Þ
sep is the force necessary to pull apart a pair of particles. Despite the
way it happens, the material bond breaks typically long before a single Fig. 1. Aggregates composed of close-packed equal spheres: Left panel: face-
constituent's material failure can occur (Guimar~aes et al., 2012; Bril- centered cubic (fcc). Right panel: body-centered cubic (bcc). These regular,
liantov et al., 2007). crystal-like arrangements, yield high coordination numbers and thus high
Now, consider that we have an asteroid made up of thousands of small filling factors.

3
A.H. Fernandes Guimar~
aes et al. Planetary and Space Science 206 (2021) 105305

Table 1
^
Regular packing characteristics of a single unit cell: number of constituents N,
bulk coordination number CN, bulk filling factor f, and volume scaling factor ^v,
^ ¼ ^vs3 and so is the constituent size.
where the volume of the unit cell is V o

Packing ^
N CN ^v f
pffiffiffi
fcc 4 12 16 2 0.74
bcc 2 8 64 pffiffiffi 0.68
3
9

Brilliantov et al. (2007) using energies. We will use those specific

self-energy equations (Guimar~aes et al., 2012) to determine the operating
range that is interesting for us. We consider the relationship between the
densities of the body and the monomers to re-write the equations of the
specific energies – ρ body ¼ f ⋅ ρo. The equations for self-gravity and
adhesion of monomers aggregates are

4π Fig. 2. Transition radius of an aggregate corresponds to the point where the

QG ¼
Gπρ body R
2
(5)
5 strength regime is overtaken by the gravitational regime. The equation R(so) is
defined in Eq. (7).
3 f A CN
53
QA ¼
s (6)
4π ρ body o

~
where A ¼ A=ð4 ~ ¼ ð36 π 5 γ 5 D2 Þ1=3 =5. If Eqs. (5) and (??)
 21=3 Þ, with A
are combined, we write the total specific self-energy like QT ¼ QG þ QA.
Throughout this study we use G ¼ 6.67 ⋅ 10
11 m3kg
1s
2 and we use
material constants for silica particles for our chondrites aggregates, as
done in Gunkelmann et al. (2017). Hence, γ ¼ 0.5 N m
1, Y ¼ 54 ⋅ 109 Pa
and ν ¼ 0.17 (e.g. Chokshi et al., 1993; Gunkelmann et al., 2017). Just for
comparison, we consider also ice aggregates, their parameters’ values are
given by γ ¼ 0.74 N m
1, Y ¼ 7 ⋅ 109 Pa and ν ¼ 0.25 (Chokshi et al.,
1993; Brilliantov et al., 2007; Guimar~aes et al., 2012; Bodrova et al.,
2012, e.g.).
The dependence of the energy on the material parameters is clear,
especially when γ is a key parameter for the adhesion equation. However,
energy also depends on the size of monomers, so, which may be an un-
certain and important input. If we match Eqs (5) and (??) and isolate
them as a function of the radius of the aggregate, R(so), we have Eq. (7)
(Guimar~ aes et al., 2012).

15 f A CN
53
R2t ¼ s (7)
16 ρ2body G π 2 o
The function determines the aggregate's size limit from the strength to
the gravitational regime for spherical aggregates. The point where the
change of regimes occurs is the transition radius, Rt. We plot so versus Rt.
The graph's limit must follow the necessary minimum to agree with the
Tabor parameter mentioned previously. – see Fig. 2.
According to Gunkelmann et al. (2017), we consider the silicates
monomers with radius so ¼ 0.76 ⋅ 10
6 m and, for the ice material, the
same value, keeping the size range suggested in Postberg et al. (2009,
e.g.) and Mukai (1986). Thus, considering the specific energies, Eq. (6)
defines the size-range of asteroids and we will take further on. See Fig. 3
for more details.
We will analyze bodies with a smaller or equal radius compared to the
transition radius size into the size range for which our proposal of a
driven break may make the difference. Accordingly to Fig. 3, our chon-
drites aggregates have the transition radius around 1 km for the defined
value of so.
3. Body breaking
Fig. 3. Here we present the adhesion and the gravitational energies for aggre-
gates built of micro-size monomers organized as fcc packing. The match point of
the two correspondent lines determines the aggregate's size when the gravita-
tional regime starts. The transition happens at the exact point where self-gravity
overtakes adhesion in contribution to the aggregate resistivity. The density of
the body is assumed to be 3.2 g cm
3 for the upper line (gray), and for the other
one (blue line) the density is 3.6 g cm
3.
We determine the boundary between the disturbed body and the dis-
turbing body through:
a) shape analysis – first, we use different ellipsoid proportions in the
physical measurements, ranging from a sphere to a prolate spheroid
with the semi-major axis greater than ten times its cross-section;
b) mass ratio variation – it has been considered values starting from μ ¼
10
17;
c) radius slices – we compared the effects of these forces for different
“radius slices, (Rcut)” of the disturbed body – see Fig. 5.
d) the model of the asteroid is built using monomers with so ¼ 0.76 ⋅
10
6 m, as mentioned earlier.

The Roche limit names the boundary between the region that pre-
serves the body's uniqueness and the region that breaks it. Our study
considers the barycenter calculation for each part of the disturbed body –
see Fig. 4. We also have considered the body composition variables
(shape and different materials) that also change this limiting distance.
The balanced equation between external forces and binding forces
(adhesion and self-gravity) is solved to determine the distance, a, where
the rupture occurs for each “slice case” – Eq. (8). On the left of Eq. (8), we
consider first only the self-gravity, and later we added the effects of the
adhesion. On the right of the equation is the tidal difference added to the

4
A.H. Fernandes Guimar~
aes et al. Planetary and Space Science 206 (2021) 105305

Fig. 4. Roche limit – external forces are acting against binding forces. It is considered the barycenter for each fragment in the calculation to determine the limit.

Z

centrifugal difference between the body parts. The final equation is 1 ao
x2
d1 ðxÞ ¼ ρ π κb x c2o
dx
shown as uðxÞ body
ao
h κa κb
Z ao
 (11)
Fbinding ¼ Fexternal 1 x2

d2 ðxÞ ¼ ρ body π κ b x c2o
dx
  muðxÞ ao
h κa κb
mu  u  uM mu M
G ¼ G M 
þ
d2  ða
d1 Þ2 ða þ d2 Þ2 (8) where d1 is used for the part attracted, and d2 for the part left. Then, we


uðM þ uÞ mu ðM þ muÞ 
calculate the resulting distance, a, using Eq. (8). We take the largest
þ
 positive value as the most plausible, and the cases that have either only
ða
d1 Þ2 ða þ d2 Þ2 
negative values or the answer is indeterminate are not considered.

where G is the gravitational constant, and M is the mass of the main body
4. Results – finding best location
that is attracting the smaller one. The small body has its mass given by
mo ¼ u þ mu. The portion attributed to u is the one separated from mu
The main idea is to find the best location to collide with the small
due to the tidal attraction suffered from M. It is under analyses how closer
body as it approaches the Earth. We have relied on theories to figure out
to the main body the small body's rupture may occur, that is, when it
where to break a body before it ruptures due to an external force (tidal)
separates from mu.
influence, but still using this natural body to help break the object. The
Now, let us consider an ellipsoid as the form for the hypothetical
difference between small bodies’ behaviors, supported or not by adhe-
asteroid. It has ao on the x-direction, and the perpendicular section
sion, has to be considered because knowing the window range is crucial
formed in the y-z plane by bo and co, respectively. We have ao ⩾ bo ⩾ co
to understand why we claim that the region we found here may be the
and the value of the semi-axes are given below
best intersection range.
0 113
B mo C 4.1. Roche limit versus binding body forces
co ¼ @ 2 4 A
κ a κ b 3 π ρ1
(9) We applied Eq. (8) considering the Earth as the main body attracting
bo ¼ κ b co the asteroid. The main body data are: M ¼ 5.97219 ⋅ 1024 kg, the density
is ρM ¼ 5.513 g cm
3, and RM ¼ 6378.137 ⋅ 103 m is the equatorial radius
ao ¼ κ a κ b co of the Earth.
We estimated the values for which the rupture may occur for hypo-
where κ a is the ratio between the semi-axes ao and bo. κ b is the ratio be- thetical asteroids (several mass-ratio) crossing near Earth, for different
tween the semi-axes bo and co. All the axes are given as a function of mo, percentages, according to the example shown in Fig. 5. The asteroid
which depends on the chosen mass ratio, taken as μ ¼ mo/M. Therefore, model is built using fcc structured aggregates with monomers size-radius
we have mo ¼ μ ⋅ M. equal so ¼ 0.76 ⋅ 10
6 m. The different color lines stand for the semi-
The consideration of different sections for the asteroid's breakage major axis's use for testing the weakest breaking section. The first two
entered in the calculation using the parameter h, which is proportional to columns in Fig. 6 bring up the results for spherical bodies (first row),
ao, since Rcut ¼ ao
h (see Fig. 5). The resulting masses portions are given prolate spheroids (middle row), and oblate spheroids (third row).
by In Fig. 6, (a), (b) and (c), the binding force is only due to the self-
Z

ao  gravity, so we have Fbinding ¼ Fself-gravity. In Fig. 6(d), (e) and (f) the
x2
uðxÞ ¼ ρ πκb c2o
2 2 dx binding forces include both the self-gravity and the adhesive contact
body
ao
h κa κb (10) forces, according to Eq. (4), so that, Fbinding ¼ Fself-gravity þ Fsep.
muðxÞ ¼ mo
uðxÞ In a comparison between the results given in the plots for 100%ao

The barycenter distances for each of the parts (according to Fig. 4)

follow

5
A.H. Fernandes Guimar~
aes et al.
Fig. 5. Radius slices for three different cut sections, where Rcut ¼ R
h is the
section of the longest distance from the body's barycenter. From top to bottom:
cut section distances are given for 100%, 50% and 10% of the radius. Each of
these cut-sections was considered for Roche limit assessment (stitched lines).
The total mass of the ellipsoid is given by mo ¼ mu þ u, considering that μ ¼
mo/M.
(section through the longest axis in halves)4 considering only self-gravity
as a binding force, Fig. 6 (a-c), and with the plots considering the self-
gravity together with adhesion, Fig. 6 (d-f), the deviation is evident
when, in the plot with adhesion, the horizontal line deflects down. This
diverging trace between the two-column groups is seen for the smaller
body mass ratios.
4.2. The range
We found the ranges exactly coming out from the divergence between
the 100%ao lines (left-right plots) from the same row in the first two
columns in Fig. 6. The interception region A given size of SB has the
100%ao lines resulting from the consideration with or without adhesion,
and it is the region between lines that determines the interception area.
Adhesion has considerable importance for SBs with a tiny mass ratio,
especially from the deflection point to the left, when the discrepancy
between the binding forces originates. The deflection point is probably
related to the transition radius and is separated because higher losses
should be considered when the energy was estimated in earlier section
2.3.
In Fig. 6 (g)-(i) these lines are taken into the same plot, and the
highlighted green area is the sum of all line ranges, with the ranges
resulting from the differences of the values of the Roche distance
calculated for each case, according to each size of the body.
The beginning of this area between the lines is the better interception
region for the corresponding body size. Thus, those bodies, for which the
dimensions correspond to the green zone, are clearly in the strength
regime. It is more difficult to break the contact bond than to separate the
4
We consider that the lines in Fig. 6 stand for different cuts as presented in
Fig. 5. We proposed these sections to determine the most fragile section area if
the body is subject to stress.
6
Planetary and Space Science 206 (2021) 105305
pieces since self-gravity is the lowest force forming the body resistance.
Lower values for the density increase the area between the 100%ao
lines, as seen in Fig. 7. The figure's colors present the range for bodies of
the same size, differing only by densities. Fig. 7 covers the OCs range.
5. Discussion and conclusions
In this paper, we have studied the role of contact forces (adhesion) for
a body approaching the Earth with the tendency of disruption due to the
gravitational interaction during the closest approach. Our goal was to
determine the best location for the interception of a hazardous body,
which means the appropriate location for interference, such as, e.g., a
spacecraft colliding with the body having the mission of breaking it into
pieces. This window is the ultimate distance from Earth for a human
action before the body starts the process of disruption due to tidal, but
later enough to be into the strength-dominated regime.
Several studies in planetary science incorporate granular media to
model celestial bodies (Richardson et al., 1998; Hertzsch, 2002, e.g.), and
many authors have mentioned the importance of including the strength
on the calculations about tidal encounters, spin limits, and planetary ring
aggregates (Sharma et al., 2006; Albers and Spahn, 2006; Guimar~aes
et al., 2012; Sanchez and Scheeres, 2014; Scheeres et al., 2010).
We consider, together, adhesion?? and self-gravity, forming the in-
ternal asteroid resistivity. Moreover, both support the body against
external force actions. First, we introduced adhesion to evaluate the
strength of a body using the Johnson-Kendall-Roberts (JKR) theory
(Johnson et al., 1971). We assumed a model for the asteroid creation
using simplifications, like the consideration of mono-micro-sized parti-
cles, all structured in the form of fcc, which is the densest packing and
may mimic the interior of a body derived from many collision. We apply
JKR considering a suggested value for silicates particle sizes (Gunkel-
mann et al., 2017). We are aware of various particle sizes' uncertainties
because this is a critical variant in the results obtained for a body's re-
sistivity. However, although the unrealistic assumptions, the strength
supported by adhesion with the theoretical model of JKR reached radius
values pointing to the transition between strength- and gravitational
regimes very close to those summarized in Holsapple and Housen (2019)
– see section 2.3.
Second, we divided the object in two, taking apart the body's parts'
barycenter, as parts broken by tidal. It is a simple approach to determine
a rupture due to external action, and we should stress that our tidal model
does not consider evolution over time but characterizes a situation of
tension. Sharma et al. (2006); Holsapple (2007); Holsapple and Michel
(2008); Zhang and Michel (2020) did more dedicated works about tidal
for aggregates, carefully involving spin and time evolution. Nevertheless,
Holsapple and Michel (2008) stated well in their work that the tidal
breakup of a secondary is very multi-dimensional, depending on pa-
rameters like its orientation, shape, density, spin, and material proper-
ties. It will be impossible to know all parameters, so we always have to
make assumptions to go further. Sharma et al. (2006) discussed their
approaches to deal with the tidal compared to the work of Richardson
et al. (1998). Both works involved Hydrodynamics Simulation, and they
get divergences in their results due to the parameters adopted.
With our simple tidal model, we realize that the rupture occurred for
all objects' sizes without adhesion concern at the same distance relative
to the main body. On the contrary, when we included the resistivity's
forces into the model, the body stress-strength relation increases, and the
object remains intact for sizes smaller than  1 km. This exact point
where the deviation between the body rupture results with and without
adhesion determines the opportune region's beginning that we aim to be
the best location for a driven breakup. This area is the ultimate place for
an interception of the body – see Fig. 6. Moreover, from this point to
smaller object sizes, the discrepancy between the results enlarges, being
necessary a sudden interception to a driven break up for those objects the
lines are close. However, if, on the one hand, the calculations are
imprecise, on the other side, the use of adhesion ensures this ingredient
A.H. Fernandes Guimar~
aes et al. Planetary and Space Science 206 (2021) 105305

Fig. 6. We calculate the binding forces that respond to tidal force for three ellipsoids with different ratios of semi-axes and considering in the horizontal axis different
body mass by Earth-mass ratio. The plots are divided from top to bottom as follow: at the upper row the plots are for sphere, at the middle row the plots are for a prolate
spheroid with semi-axes proportion as a:10b:10c, and at the bottom row an oblate spheroid with semi-axes proportion as a:b:10c. Where we have at the left column:
(a),(b),(c) – only the self-gravity as binding force against tidal to determine the Roche limit. At the middle column: (d),(e),(f) – the binding is given by self-gravity þ
adhesion. Theright column: (g),(h),(i) gives the opportune location to break up the body, which is the green region – determining where the adhesion force is the
strongest binding force (the line with adhesion bends down). At this region, to split the body shall be easier in this region range between curves. In order to have an
idea of body size we can consider to hit, we changed the horizontal axis of the plots to the bodies' semimajor axis. Observe that we have this area only for small bodies.

7
A.H. Fernandes Guimar~
aes et al.
Fig. 7. Window ranges of a sphere for two densities. The breaking region
window determines where the adhesion force is stronger than self-gravity. Both
are binding forces, and breaking the body shall be easier in the range between
the curves. Observe that we have this area only for small bodies. The less dense
the body, the larger is the size, so adhesion is more relevant than self-gravity,
and the window of interception will also be larger.
as an essential resistivity component, reinforcing the idea that, from a
certain distance from Earth, the body is still resisting the natural external
force (tidal).
We should expect that the greater the body's assigned density, the
greater its resistance; consequently, larger bodies' sizes are into the
strength regime. However, given our results, the size of bodies that could
reach Earth intact has a slight correlation with density. A study with
varied models has to be considered to vary the contact density.
Even if we have used more models, our results indicate the best region
for solid bodies as we desired.
CRediT author statement
Ana Helena Fernandes Guimar~aes: Conceptualization, methodology,
software, validation, formal analysis, investigation, writing original draft
and editing and visualization.
Antonio Fernando Bertachini de Almeida Prado: Validation, re-
sources, writing – review and editing, supervision, Project administration
and funding acquisition.
Safwan Aljbaae: Writing – validation, review and editing.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
A.H.F.G. wishes to thank the FAPESP, which supported this work via
the grant 2018/11659-7. S.A. thanks the CNPq for the grant
88887.374148/2019-00. All the authors thank CAPES.
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