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Among the nearly 30,000 known near-Earth asteroids (NEAs), only tens of them possess Earth co-orbital characteristics with semi-major axes $\sim$1 au. In particular, 469219 Kamo`oalewa (2016 HO3), upcoming target of China's Tianwen-2 asteroid sampling mission, exhibits a meta-stable 1:1 mean-motion resonance with Earth. Intriguingly, recent ground-based observations show that Kamo`oalewa has spectroscopic characteristics similar to space-weathered lunar silicates, hinting at a lunar origin instead of an asteroidal one like the vast majority of NEAs. Here we use numerical simulations to demonstrate that Kamo`oalewa's physical and orbital properties are compatible with a fragment from a crater larger than 10--20 km formed on the Moon in the last few million years. The impact could have ejected sufficiently large fragments into heliocentric orbits, some of which could be transferred to Earth 1:1 resonance and persist today. This leads us to suggest the young lunar crater Giordano Bruno (22 km diameter, 1--10 Ma age) as the most likely source, linking a specific asteroid in space to its source crater on the Moon. The hypothesis will be tested by the Tianwen-2 mission when it returns a sample of Kamo`oalewa. And the upcoming NEO Surveyor mission will possibly help us to identify such a lunar-derived NEA population., Comment: 29 pages, 4 figures. Published in Nature Astronomy, 19 April 2024

The rotational mass loss has been realized to be a prevalent mechanism to produce low-speed debris near the asteroid, and the size composition of the asteroid's surface regolith has been closely measured by in situ explorations. However, the full-scale evolution of the shedding debris has not been examined using the observed particle sizes, which may hold vital clues to the initial growth of an asteroid moonlet, and help us to understand the general mechanisms that dominate the formation of asteroid systems. This paper presented our study on the cumulative evolution of the debris cloud formed by a rotationally unstable asteroid. A semi-analytical model is developed to characterize the spatial-temporal evolution of the debris cloud posterior to a shedding event. Large-scale DEM simulations are performed to quantify the clustering behavior of the debris particles in the mechanical environment near the asteroid. As a result, we found the cumulation of a steady debris cloud is dominated by large pieces of debris, and the shedding particles follow a common migration trend, which fundamentally determines the mass distribution of the debris cloud. For the accretion analysis, we sketched the life cycle of a debris cluster, and showed its dependency on particle size. The DEM simulations adopt physical parameters estimated from observations and asteroid missions. The results confirm porous fluffy cluster structures can form shortly after a shedding event with magnitudes as the observed shedding activities. Measurements to these structures show they possess certain strength and adsorption capacity to collisions from dissociative debris particles.

Asteroid 2016 HO3, a small asteroid (<60 m) in super fast rotation state (~28 min), and is the target of China's Tianwen-2 asteroid sample-return mission. In this work, we investigate its structural stability using an advanced soft-sphere-discrete-element-model code, DEMBody, which is integrated with bonded-aggregate models to simulate highly irregular boulders. The asteroid body is numerically constructed by tens of thousands particles, and then is slowly spin up until structural failure. Rubble piles with different morphologies, grain size distributions and structures are investigated. We find a 2016 HO3 shaped granular asteroid would undergo tensile failure at higher cohesive strengths as opposed to shear failure in lower strengths, regardless of its shape and constituent grain size ratio. Such a failure mode transition is consistent with the priority between the Maximum Tensile Stress criterion criterion and the Drucker-Prager criterion. Therefore, previous works that solely considered the Drucker-Prager failure criterion have underestimated the minimal cohesion strength required for fast-rotating asteroids. We predict that the high spin rate of asteroid 2016 HO3 requires a surface cohesion over ~1 Pa and a bulk cohesion over ~10-20 Pa. Through comparing these strength conditions with the latest data from asteroid missions, we suggest a higher likelihood of a monolithic structure over a typical rubble pile structure. However, the possibility of the latter cannot be completely ruled out. In addition, the asteroid's surface could retain a loose regolith layer globally or only near its poles, which could be the target for sampling of Tianwen-2 mission.

An asteroid spun up to its critical limit has unique surface mechanical properties that its gravity and the centrifugal force largely balance, creating a relaxation environment where low-energy events such as mass shedding may trigger subsequent long complex motion of an asteroid's regolith grains. Exploring such an evolution process may provide key clues for understanding the early formation of multi-asteroid systems. This paper investigates the complex evolution process of loose particles becoming triggered by shedding events and the dependency of their dynamical propagation on the contact mechanical properties of the asteroid surface. We present a numerical model for tracking the trajectory of a shed particle that considers the collision between the particle and the surface of an asteroid. Monte Carlo simulations are performed to reflect the statistical behavior of shed particles. We also introduce zero-velocity surfaces to our data-based analysis in order to reveal the intrinsic invariance of the evolutionary processes. We used the average mechanical energy of the particle cloud to check the connection between contact property and the temporal-spatial distribution of the shed particles. We sketch a common evolutionary path of the particle in the vicinity of a fast-rotating asteroid, that is, particles dislodged from the unstable region will eventually enter, through several collisions with the surface, non-return orbits that launch from the minimum geopotential area of the unstable region. The common trend is independent of any particular asteroid morphology, and all shed particles enter the same evolutionary path. We also find that the orbital energy of the particle cloud is statistically independent of the surface contact property, meaning that the collision coefficient of restitution is a nonsensitive parameter in the outward spreading process of the shed particles., Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A

In this paper, the time- and propellant-optimal low-thrust rephasing problems in circular orbit are studied to depict their solution spaces in an atlas. The number of key parameters that settle the rephasing problems is reduced by developing a set of linearized equations of motion based on the Sundman transformation and by formulating two reduced shooting functions using the minimum principle and symmetry properties. Only one key parameter is identified for the time-optimal problem, while two key parameters are obtained for the propellant-optimal one. Numerical investigation of the relationships between these parameters and shooting variables reveals that they can be depicted by some curve (or contour) maps and approximated by piecewise functions (or linear interpolations). For the relatively short- or long-term rephasing cases, some analytical time- and propellant-optimal solutions are proposed and consistent with the numerical solutions. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed solutions can provide good initial guesses to solve the low-thrust rephasing problems with nonlinear dynamics. Moreover, the approximations of the performance indexes can be used in the preliminary mission design.