TR: Small Asteroids Are Held Together by Van Der Waals Force

[bystander]

Small Asteroids Are Held Together by Van Der Waals Forces
Technology Review: arXiv Blog - 2010 Feb 16

Small spinning asteroids are piles of rubble and dust that ought to fly apart but don't. Now astronomers have worked out why not

Scaling Forces To Asteroid Surfaces: The Role Of Cohesion

[geckzilla]

So the same force that allows gecko toes to stick to smooth glass also holds asteroids together.

[neufer]

So the same force that allows gecko toes to stick to smooth glass also holds asteroids together.

You come down offa der Waals right now, geckzilla

[bystander]

Small Asteroids, Bread Flour, and a Dutch Physicist's 150-Year Old Theory
Universe Today - 2010 Feb 27

Images sent back from space missions suggest that smaller asteroids are not pristine chunks of rock, but are instead covered in rubble that ranges in size from meter-sized boulders to flour-like dust. Indeed some asteroids appear to be up to 50% empty space, suggesting that they could be collections of rubble with no solid core.

But how do these asteroids form and evolve? And if we ever have to deflect one, to avoid the fate of the dinosaurs, how to do so without breaking it up, and making the danger far greater?