Yarkovsky effect

The Yarkovsky effect is a force acting on a rotating body in space caused by the anisotropic emission of thermal photons, which carry momentum.

The effect was discovered by the Polish-Russian[1] civil engineer Ivan Osipovich Yarkovsky (1844–1902), who worked in Russia on scientific problems in his spare time.

Decades later, Öpik, recalling the pamphlet from memory, discussed the possible importance of the Yarkovsky effect on movement of meteoroids about the Solar System.

The asteroid drifted 15 km from its predicted position over twelve years (the orbit was established with great precision by a series of radar observations in 1991, 1995 and 1999 from the Arecibo radio telescope).

Calculations are further complicated by the effects of shadowing and thermal "reillumination", whether caused by local craters or a possible overall concave shape.