Astronomy
Sunlight nudges an asteroid
Reverse the spin-axis tilt to reverse the diurnal Yarkovsky drift. Change thermal inertia to move the afternoon hot spot.
The model and its limits
Spherical diurnal Yarkovsky approximation on a circular orbit, in the regime of bodies much larger than the thermal skin; the normalisation is checked against Bennu. Seasonal recoil is omitted. YORP uses an adjustable signed shape coefficient; particles illustrate thermal photons.
Equations used in the module
Equations Θ = Γ√ω/(εσT³); da/dt = 2a_t/n; a_t ∝ Θ cos γ/[R(1+Θ+Θ²/2)].
