Document Type
Article
Version Deposited
Published Version
Publication Date
5-27-2020
Publication Title
Nature Communications
DOI
10.1038/s41467-020-16433-z
Abstract
Asteroid shapes and hydration levels can serve as tracers of their history and origin. For instance, the asteroids (162173) Ryugu and (101955) Bennu have an oblate spheroidal shape with a pronounced equator, but contain different surface hydration levels. Here we show, through numerical simulations of large asteroid disruptions, that oblate spheroids, some of which have a pronounced equator defining a spinning top shape, can form directly through gravitational reaccumulation. We further show that rubble piles formed in a single disruption can have similar porosities but variable degrees of hydration. The direct formation of top shapes from single disruption alone can explain the relatively old crater-retention ages of the equatorial features of Ryugu and Bennu. Two separate parent-body disruptions are not necessarily required to explain their different hydration levels.
Recommended Citation
Michel, P., Ballouz, RL., Barnouin, O.S. et al. (2020). Collisional formation of top-shaped asteroids and implications for the origins of Ryugu and Bennu. Nature Communications 11, 2655. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-16433-z
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Comments
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.