In Search of the Potentially Hazardous Asteroids in the Taurid Resonant Swarm

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Li, Jasmine, Ye, Quanzhi, Vida, Denis, Clark, David L., Bellm, Eric C., Dekany, Richard, Graham, Matthew J., Masci, Frank J., Purdum, Josiah, Racine, Benjamin, Wold, Avery
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Li, Jasmine
Ye, Quanzhi
Vida, Denis
Clark, David L.
Bellm, Eric C.
Dekany, Richard
Graham, Matthew J.
Masci, Frank J.
Purdum, Josiah
Racine, Benjamin
Wold, Avery
author_facet Li, Jasmine
Ye, Quanzhi
Vida, Denis
Clark, David L.
Bellm, Eric C.
Dekany, Richard
Graham, Matthew J.
Masci, Frank J.
Purdum, Josiah
Racine, Benjamin
Wold, Avery
contents The Taurid Complex is a large interplanetary system that contains comet 2P/Encke, several meteoroid streams, and possibly a number of near-Earth asteroids. The size and nature of the system has led to the speculation that it was formed through a large-scale cometary breakup. Numerical investigations have suggested that planetary dynamics can create a resonant region with a large number of objects concentrated in a small segment of the orbit, known as the Taurid swarm, which approaches the Earth in certain years and provides favorable conditions to study the Taurid Complex. Recent meteor observations confirmed the existence of the swarm for mm- to m-sized objects. Here we present a dedicated telescopic search for potentially hazardous asteroids and other macroscopic objects in the Taurid swarm using the Zwicky Transient Facility survey. We determine from our non-detection that there are no more than 9--14 $H\leq24$ (equivalent to a diameter of $D\gtrsim100$~m) objects in the swarm, suggesting that the Encke--Taurid progenitor was $\sim10$~km in size. A progenitor of such a size is compatible with the prediction of state-of-the-art Solar System dynamical models, which expects $\sim0.1$ $D>10$~km objects on Encke-like orbits at any given time.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_08670
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle In Search of the Potentially Hazardous Asteroids in the Taurid Resonant Swarm
Li, Jasmine
Ye, Quanzhi
Vida, Denis
Clark, David L.
Bellm, Eric C.
Dekany, Richard
Graham, Matthew J.
Masci, Frank J.
Purdum, Josiah
Racine, Benjamin
Wold, Avery
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
The Taurid Complex is a large interplanetary system that contains comet 2P/Encke, several meteoroid streams, and possibly a number of near-Earth asteroids. The size and nature of the system has led to the speculation that it was formed through a large-scale cometary breakup. Numerical investigations have suggested that planetary dynamics can create a resonant region with a large number of objects concentrated in a small segment of the orbit, known as the Taurid swarm, which approaches the Earth in certain years and provides favorable conditions to study the Taurid Complex. Recent meteor observations confirmed the existence of the swarm for mm- to m-sized objects. Here we present a dedicated telescopic search for potentially hazardous asteroids and other macroscopic objects in the Taurid swarm using the Zwicky Transient Facility survey. We determine from our non-detection that there are no more than 9--14 $H\leq24$ (equivalent to a diameter of $D\gtrsim100$~m) objects in the swarm, suggesting that the Encke--Taurid progenitor was $\sim10$~km in size. A progenitor of such a size is compatible with the prediction of state-of-the-art Solar System dynamical models, which expects $\sim0.1$ $D>10$~km objects on Encke-like orbits at any given time.
title In Search of the Potentially Hazardous Asteroids in the Taurid Resonant Swarm
topic Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.08670