A small cohesionless spherical body of radius and density has surface self-gravitational acceleration . The radial stretching of the corotating point-mass tidal field is . Equating them gives the displayed survival-distance estimate. The size cancels because both accelerations are linear in at fixed density. This is a local spherical force-balance estimate, not the exact fluid Roche figure: shape deformation, material strength and nonsynchronous spin can change its numerical coefficient.
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