A Heiland Lecture by Daniel Scheeres. He reported that several missions have explored small, rubble pile asteroids The scientific exploration of these bodies is driven by their primitive compositions, which can contain materials that are largely unchanged from the formational epoch of the solar system The study of these bodies has exposed many interesting aspects of, and questions about, their unique geophysical properties.
In fact, the study of the geophysics of rubble pile bodies is of fundamental interest for understanding key aspects of solar system evolution, including the formation of planetesimals across all regimes in the solar system, the unique and dynamic structures seen in planetary rings, and the formation of rubble pile asteroids following catastrophic collision..
In this talk the fundamental geophysical processes of small rubble pile asteroids will be presented, and several key exploration missions to these bodies will be reviewed and their results discussed Finally, some future ideas for the continued exploration of rubble pile asteroid geophysics will be discussed.
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