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Surface Properties of Near-Sun Asteroids

Richardson, Derek C.; Sunshine, Jessica M.; Hsieh, Henry H. +8 more

Near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) with small perihelion distances reach subsolar temperatures of ≥1000 K. They are hypothesized to undergo "supercatastrophic" disruption, potentially caused by near-Sun processes such as thermal cracking, spin-up, meteoroid impacts, and subsurface volatile release, all of which are likely to cause surface alteration, whi…