Dynamic method

Article summary

The dynamic method is a procedure for the determination of the masses of asteroids. The procedure gets its name from its use of the Newtonian laws of the dynamics, or motion, of asteroids as they move around the Solar System. The procedure works by taking multiple position measurements to determine the gravitational deflection caused when two or more asteroids move past each other. The method relies on the fact that the large number of known asteroids means they will occasionally move past one another at very close distances. If at least one of the two interacting bodies is large enough, its gravitational influence on the other can reveal its mass. The accuracy of the determined mass is limited by the precision and timing of the appropriate astrometric observations being made to determine the gravitational deflection caused by a given interaction. Because the method relies on detecting the amount of gravitational deflection induced during an interaction, the procedure works best for objects which will produce a large deflection in their interactions with other objects. This means that the procedure works best for large objects, but it can also be effectively applied to objects which have repeated close interactions with each other such as when the two objects are in orbital resonance with one another.…

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