Talk:Rubble pile

101955 Bennu
This is a proposal to add 101955 Bennu as an example of a rubble pile to this article. I am proposing changing the main image to Bennu and adding it to the intro of the article. I'd like to see what is done with Ultima Thule on the Contact binary (small Solar System body) article and emulate that here with Bennu. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jared.h.wood (talk • contribs) 17:14, 3 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Added picture of Bennu and mention in the article intro. Replaced picture of Phobos. Jared.h.wood (talk) 05:24, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Itokawa is a rubble pile?
As of today there is, to my best knowledge, not a single confirmed rubble pile -- the weblink to the JAXA-page, in particular, is quite misleading (Itokawa can be seen to be as boulder-strewn as Eros is, but a rubble pile is another thing!). Sure, there is bits and pieces of evidence, such as the low mass density of Mathilda or other asteroids, the nearly-spherical shape of many binary asteroids, and the cut-off of determined rotation rates at the Roche-limit. But still the existence of rubble piles is not entirely sure so far. If nobody minds I'll rewrite the article along these lines -- once I'm done with the German version, that is. --DerHerrMigo 20:54, 17 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Sounds like you know what you're talking about. But speaking as a non-expert ... Itokawa certainly looks like ... a pile of rubble. The Singing Badger 21:39, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Why are some asteroids rubble piles and some not?
It seems to me that you could fairly well predict if an asteroid is going to be a "rubble pile"/a low density void structure, by knowing its orbital history around the sun, i.e its rate of outgassing. As I can imagine that with say, a quick baking/the creation of a strong voided structure is part of the reason why "rubble piles" are not consolidated yet. By contrast, if the asteroid is slowly baked/the void structure does not turn out to be so supportive or rigid, then gravitational processes would make consolidation easier. I got thinking about this after doing some editing on Foam concrete as I seem to remember reading about it being used as a target substitute in light gas gun impact testing and a bit about this hypothesis. Although maybe I'm mistaken as my search engine didn't produce any hits. Boundarylayer (talk) 11:41, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Phobos

 * The moon Phobos, the larger of the two natural satellites of the planet Mars, is also thought to be a rubble pile bound together by a thin regolith crust about 100 m (330 ft) thick.

Meaning without the regolith it would come apart?? I'm skeptical. —Tamfang (talk) 20:01, 2 November 2023 (UTC)