Development of Numerical Model of the Thermal State of an Asteroid with Locally Rough Surface and Its Application

Abstract

We present a numerical method for simulating a disk-resolved thermal image of an asteroid with small-scale roughness. In our method, we carry out numerical thermal evolution model of a small but rough area taking into account its latitude, shadowing effect, and re-absorption of the thermal radiation by neighbor. By visualization of the resulting temperature distribution for an observation direction, we obtain the thermal flux from the area as a function of the observation direction. Then thermal image of an asteroid with random topography is constructed. The resulting daytime temperature evolution profile is different from the well-known parabolic shape due to the surface roughness, implying that the daytime temperature evolution profile is a diagnostic to evaluate the surface roughness. Although this model is inapplicable to a morphologically complex asteroid such as Itokawa, the target body of Hayabusa2, Ryugu is generally convex and suitable for application of our model. Furthermore, the study presents predictions of the location shift of Ryugu trajectory after one orbital rotation due to the thermal moment caused by the rebound force from thermally emitted photons known as the Yarkovsky effect. This model is thus verifiable by precise calculation of the ephemeris of Ryugu.