arXiv subjects

Qifeng Cheng

Publications and source records attributed to Qifeng Cheng.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Asteroids Impacting the Solar System Planets and the Moon. I. Collision Rates from N-body Simulations

Previous studies have shown a mismatch between the simulated rate of asteroids impacting the Earth and the observed rate, posing an important problem for planetary defense. Extending this analysis to other planets offers a new opportunity to examine minor body populations and impactor models. We present a unified simulation framework that estimates intrinsic $D\gtrsim10$~m impactor rates on the eight planets and the Moon. We construct size-calibrated source populations of Near Earth Objects (NEOs), Main Belt Asteroids (MBAs), Jupiter-family comets (JFCs), Centaurs, and scattering trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs), and propagate them with a 300-year $N$-body simulation. To avoid relying on black-box-like collision flags, we identify close encounters and estimate impact rates in two complementary ways: a direct count of realized impactors from object-level minimum-distance calculation and a collision expectation based on population-level impact parameter statistics. We predict over 300 years there will be $6.0^{+3.8}_{-2.7}$ impactors on Venus (all NEOs), $10.0^{+11.3}_{-4.9}$ on Earth (NEOs and JFCs), $\sim$$2981^{+481}_{-469}$ on Jupiter (mainly MBAs and JFCs), $1228^{+2759}_{-1017}$ on Saturn (mainly Centaurs), and none on the remaining planets with the $1σ$ upper limits spanning $<1.8$ (inner planets) to $<1\times10^{8}$ (outer planets; weak constraint). Jupiter uniquely receives both fast unbound impactors ($>50\, \mathrm{km\,s^{-1}}$) and slower bound ones reaching down to $\sim$$20\,\mathrm{km\,s^{-1}}$. In a companion paper, we compare our predictions with observations and test whether the gap extends across the Solar System and whether current telescopes can observe these collisions.

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arXiv2026

Asteroids Impacting the Solar System Planets and the Moon. II: Comparison with Observational Impact Records

Planetary impact rates are difficult to infer from observations alone because impacts are rare, observational records are target-dependent, and converting observed flashes, bolides, and craters to an intrinsic impact rate depends on uncertain selection effects and conversion parameters. Building on the simulations in Paper I, we examine whether observational systematics can explain the order-of-magnitude mismatch between observed and modeled impact rates on Earth, and whether comparable discrepancies extend to other Solar System bodies. We convert 12 observed impact records for Earth, the Moon, Mars, and Jupiter to a common pre-atmospheric impact rate for $D>10$ m, propagate uncertainties through the conversion chain, and compare the resulting rates with the intrinsic rates derived in Paper I. We find discrepancies for Earth (observation-to-model median ratio $2.2-21.0$), the Moon ($3.4-132.1$), Mars ($14.2-118.6$), and Jupiter ($2.6-47.7$), with the dominant source of the discrepancy differing by body. The simulated Jupiter-family comet (JFC) contribution substantially reduces the Earth discrepancy, suggesting that an additional dynamical source may help explain the gap. The lunar records disagree with each other by two orders of magnitude, with the discrepancy dominated by size-extrapolation uncertainties. The Mars mismatch is dominated by crater-to-impactor conversion. The Jupiter comparison depends mainly on uncertainties in the inferred number of bound impactors and in the observational completeness thresholds. Further investigation of this mismatch requires incorporating cometary modeling and tighter constraints on size-extrapolation scaling and improved observational completeness.

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arXiv2026

Asteroids Impacting the Solar System Planets and the Moon. III. Real Impacts from Known Objects and LSST Discovery Predictions

Impact rates predicted using pre-impact source-population models and those inferred from observations disagree by a factor of a few to $\sim200$ across the Solar System planets and the Moon. An exciting opportunity for an additional observational constraint is the discovery of asteroids before impact and their tracking until impact. We evaluate this prospect based on both known objects and forecasts of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). First, we identify impacts from known objects, confirming multiple past cases and predicting two coming impacts: 2015 FK488, a $\sim1.8$ km Centaur whose nominal orbit predicts an impact with Jupiter in $\sim200$ yr, and 2022 KG1, a $<10$ m NEO recently removed from the impact-risk lists but whose nominal trajectory leads to an Earth impact in $\sim260$ yr. Both orbits are poorly constrained. Second, assuming the model-based impact rate, we predict that LSST will discover 7 of the 59 synthetic impactors quantified in our previous analysis. All of the discovered impactors will impact Jupiter, and they have a size range of $\sim200-2000$ m and expected discovery-to-collision lead times of $1.94-257.4$ yr. Two of them are discovered inside Jupiter's Hill sphere, offering rare opportunities to observe the transition from a temporary bound orbit to impact before it happens. If instead we assume the observation-inferred impact rates, LSST will at most discover $\sim20$ future Earth impactors ($>10$ m) and $\sim300$ future Jupiter impactors ($>10$ m), with a wider range on both ends for discovery-to-collision lead times. These results demonstrate that LSST can identify a subset of planetary impactors years to centuries before collision, providing a new observational pathway for testing source-population models and the impact-rate mismatch.

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arXiv2026

Assessing the Vera Rubin Observatory's Ability to Discover Asteroid Impactors Before They Collide with Earth

Asteroid impactors larger than ~10 m, from Chelyabinsk-scale airburst and Tunguska-scale events to >300 m continental threats, remain the dominant planetary-defense risk. While the Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) will transform Solar System science, its observing cadence and survey design were not specifically optimized to discover imminent impactors. To assess its performance, we introduce a new method for efficiently generating synthetic impactor populations by minimally perturbing sampled NEOMOD3 orbits and evaluate their discovery efficiency with the Sorcha survey simulator. Our simulations show that LSST discovers 79.7% of large impactors (>140 m), decreasing to 50.3% for upper mid-sized (50-140 m), 26.8% for lower mid-sized (20 - 50 m), and 10.5% for small objects (10-20 m). Warning times of the discovered impactors show a similar size dependence: small objects are typically discovered only weeks before impact (median:12.4 days), lower mid-sized within a month (median: 21.5 days), and upper mid-sized objects on timescales of a few months (median: 106.2 days). 39.0% of large impactors are discovered more than a year before impact, lacking long-lead warning despite their brightness. A loss-mode analysis reveals the underlying cause that small impactors are limited mainly by photometric sensitivity, whereas mid-sized and large objects are missed primarily due to cadence and linking constraints from LSST and its Solar System Processing (SSP) Pipelines. These results show that LSST excels at discovering faint, small impactors, but cannot by itself guarantee long-lead warning across the hazardous size spectrum. Coordinated multi-survey strategies will therefore be essential in the LSST era to achieve robust planetary-defense capability, and we study a complementary high-cadence, shallow-depth example with the Argus Array.

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