
Blame it on the thrusters
It's a right pig to get them aligned properly.
Allegedly.
Bennu, the asteroid targeted by NASA for its OSIRIS-Rex mission, is spinning at increasing rate and scientists aren’t quite sure why. The asteroid, shaped somewhat like a tabletop spinner, is rotating faster and faster, taking one fewer second to rotate per hundred years. It may not sound like much, but given enough time, the …
No, you can't blame it on the thrusters.
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Don't blame it on the sunshine.
Don't blame it on the moonlight.
Don't blame it on the good times.
Blame it on the Yarkovsky‐O'Keefe‐Radzievskii‐Paddack effect
BOOGIE sounds so much better than YORP, don't you think?
"I'm just expecting to hear they've found Ringworld."
Shurley it is effectively pulling mass to the centre?
Relative mass at the centre is increasing as the surface is venting, shedding mass. The body is losing total mass but from the surface only.
Increasingly over time, the body's mass is becoming relatively higher at the centre of the mass, as the surface sheds volatiles decreasing both mass and density at the surface.
Think of it as a spinning top whose external most edge is becoming a deepening layer of sponge, effectively pulling mass to the centre.
Or am i having a stroke?
If there are any volatiles coming from the surface of the asteroid, the acceleration makes perfect sense. As the asteroid rotates, the surface facing the sun will have a temperature gradient that will have the center of highest temperature that is shifted a slight angle from the sun in the direction of rotation. The out-gassing on the hotter surface would exert more pressure on that quarter of the asteroid vs the other quarter facing the sun. The two quarters facing away from the sun would have significantly less out-gassing, having minimal effect on any acceleration/deceleration.