AsteroidsFactory

Part of the Celestial project.

A comprehensive Rust crate for generating and simulating asteroids across all dynamical families and compositions. From near-Earth objects and main belt residents to trojans, centaurs, binary systems, rubble piles, metallic bodies, and potentially hazardous asteroids. Pure procedural — no hardcoded presets, all parameters explicit. Part of the celestial workspace.

Scope

This crate provides first-principles asteroid physics computations covering:

Asteroid generation (8 types: near-Earth, main belt, trojan, centaur, binary, rubble pile, metallic, PHA)
Orbital mechanics (Tisserand parameter, Kirkwood gaps, Hill sphere, Kozai-Lidov)
Gravitational physics (binding energy, Roche limits, tidal forces, mutual orbits)
Thermal physics (Yarkovsky drift, YORP torque, equilibrium temperature, thermal inertia)
Collisional evolution (impact energy, crater scaling, catastrophic disruption threshold)
Observables (absolute/apparent magnitude, lightcurves, spin barrier, phase functions)
Impact risk assessment (Torino scale, crater diameter, deflection delta-v)

Uses sciforge for fundamental constants and basic astrophysics functions.

Architecture

Module	Submodule	Description
`config`	`parameters`	Physical constants, orbital helpers, sphere mass/volume
`types`	`near_earth`	Apollo/Amor/Aten/Atira NEAs, MOID, Tisserand parameter
`types`	`main_belt`	C/S/M/B/D/V/X spectral types, Kirkwood gap detection
`types`	`trojan`	L4/L5 Lagrange points, libration period, stability
`types`	`centaur`	Tisserand classification, cometary activity, snow line
`types`	`binary`	Mutual orbital mechanics, contact binary detection, Roche limit
`types`	`rubble_pile`	Porosity, spin barrier, YORP timescale, cohesionless strength
`types`	`metallic`	Iron/nickel fractions, differentiation, core radius estimate
`types`	`pha`	Impact energy, Torino scale, crater diameter, deflection
`physics`	`gravity`	Binding energy, Roche limits, tidal force, angular momentum
`physics`	`thermal`	Yarkovsky drift, YORP torque, thermal inertia, skin depth
`engine`	`orbits`	Mean motion, synodic period, resonance width, Kozai-Lidov
`engine`	`evolution`	Collisional lifetime, space weathering, regolith depth
`engine`	`collisions`	Impact velocity, crater scaling, disruption threshold
`observables`	`photometry`	Absolute/apparent magnitude, H-albedo diameter, thermal flux
`observables`	`lightcurve`	Amplitude, spin barrier, tumbling damping, binary eclipses
`utils`	`helpers`	Coordinate transforms, interpolation, angle conversion
`utils`	`io`	Summary line formatting for all asteroid types

Usage

use asteroidsfactory::types::near_earth::NearEarthAsteroid;
use asteroidsfactory::types::main_belt::MainBeltAsteroid;
use asteroidsfactory::types::pha::PotentiallyHazardousAsteroid;
use asteroidsfactory::types::binary::BinaryAsteroid;

let apollo = NearEarthAsteroid::new(500.0, 2500.0, 1.5, 0.4)
    .with_inclination(10.0)
    .with_albedo(0.15);

let vesta = MainBeltAsteroid::new(265000.0, 3456.0, 2.362)
    .with_spectral_type(main_belt::SpectralType::V);

let apophis = PotentiallyHazardousAsteroid::new(185.0, 2600.0, 0.922, 0.191, 0.00025)
    .with_albedo(0.3);

let didymos = BinaryAsteroid::new(390.0, 80.0, 2170.0, 1180.0)
    .with_heliocentric_orbit(1.644, 0.384);

Examples

cargo run --example generation
cargo run --example physics
cargo run --example observables

Tests

cargo test

78 tests across three integration test suites: types_tests, physics_tests, engine_tests.

License

See LICENSE.