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Old March 1st 16, 10:30 PM posted to sci.astro
Steve Willner
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Default Most near-Earth asteroids are destroyed by the Sun, long before they get to Earth

In article ,
Yousuf Khan writes:
Since they're talking about solar radii distances here, rather than
something like AU, so could it be a combination of the Roche Limit of
the Sun plus it's solar radiation pressure?


Roche limit is about 3.5 solar radii even if the density is as low as
0.5, so that doesn't seem to be the mechanism. I don't see how solar
radiation pressure could break up an object. The pressure would have
to be different at different locations in such a way as to push the
object apart.

Expected surface temperatures at the relevant perihelion distances
are in the range 700 to 1200 K. These are much higher than the
boiling point of water (373 K) but rather lower than the melting
point of rocks. The actual destruction mechanism is unknown, but
that's no surprise. If there were an obvious destruction mechanism,
the statistical result would have been expected.

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