Prolate Body Disruption by Earth at Near Flyby: Possible Scenarios

In this paper, we discuss the possible disruption of a prolate ellipsoidal small body by the Earth’s tidal forces during a close flyby. An exact expression for the stress tensor under the action of gravity, rotation, and tidal forces is obtained using the analytical solution of the elastic problem. Constraints for the critical distance are derived taking into account the size, shape, density, mechanical properties (material strength and Poisson ratio), rotation, and two variants of the body orientation. Asteroid 433 Eros is considered as a case study. The results are important for methods for assessing the asteroid hazard of near-Earth objects (NEO) and the evolution of terrestrial planets.