Uploaded January 2021 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Simulation of the formation of the Kirkwood gaps in the asteroid belt.
Initially, 25600 asteroids are placed on randomly-generated, low-eccentricity and low-inclination orbits in the asteroid belt. The orbits of the asteroids are perturbed by Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, the Earthand Venus. After half a million year, gaps start to be visible in correspondence of the main mean-motion resonances in the belt, where the asteroids’ eccentricities increase to planet-crossing values. As the simulation progresses, the gaps become more defined
At 2My the 4:1, 3:1 and 5:2 gaps are clearly visible, while the 7:3 gap is beginning to open. Finally, at 5My the gaps have further cleared up and the cloud of low semi-major axis, planet-crossing asteroids on the leftside has thinned considerably as a consequence of planetary encounters
The dashed lines represent eccentricity values above which the asteroids
can experience close encounters with the planets.
The simulation was done using a newly developed, open source, Taylor based numerical integrator called Heyoka. Heyoka is able to harness multiple CPUs, vectorization via SIMD instructions and was recently proven to be faster and more accurate than comparable state-of-the art approaches.
Simulation of the formation of the Kirkwood gaps in the asteroid belt.
Initially, 25600 asteroids are placed on randomly-generated, low-eccentricity and low-inclination orbits in the asteroid belt. The orbits of the asteroids are perturbed by Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, the Earthand Venus. After half a million year, gaps start to be visible in correspondence of the main mean-motion resonances in the belt, where the asteroids’ eccentricities increase to planet-crossing values. As the simulation progresses, the gaps become more defined
At 2My the 4:1, 3:1 and 5:2 gaps are clearly visible, while the 7:3 gap is beginning to open. Finally, at 5My the gaps have further cleared up and the cloud of low semi-major axis, planet-crossing asteroids on the leftside has thinned considerably as a consequence of planetary encounters
The dashed lines represent eccentricity values above which the asteroids
can experience close encounters with the planets.
The simulation was done using a newly developed, open source, Taylor based numerical integrator called Heyoka. Heyoka is able to harness multiple CPUs, vectorization via SIMD instructions and was recently proven to be faster and more accurate than comparable state-of-the art approaches.
