Craters, boulders and regolith of (101955) Bennu indicative of an old and dynamic surface

Walsh, K. J.; Jawin, E. R.; Ballouz, Ronald-Louis; Barnouin, Olivier S.; Bierhaus, E. B.; Connolly, H. C.; Molaro, J. L.; McCoy, Timothy J.; Delbò, M.; Hartzell, C. M.; Pajola, M.; Schwartz, S. R.; Trang, D.; Asphaug, Erik; Becker, K. J.; Beddingfield, C. B.; Bennett, C. A.; Bottke, W. F.; Burke, K. N.; Clark, B. C.; Daly, M. G.; DellaGiustina, D. N.; Dworkin, Jason P.; Elder, C. M.; Golish, D. R.; Hildebrand, A. R.; Malhotra, Renu; Marshall, John R.; Michel, Patrick; Nolan, M. C.; Perry, Mark; Rizk, B.; Ryan, A. J.; Sandford, Scott A.; Scheeres, Daniel J.; Susorney, H. C. M.; Thuillet, Florian; Лауретта, Д. С.

doi:10.1038/s41561-019-0326-6

Cited by 184 publications

(205 citation statements)

References 39 publications

(32 reference statements)

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“…2), cratered, and covered by rocks with a wide range of sizes, consistent with its characterization as a rubble-pile asteroid [17]. Impact craters range in size from 10 to over 150 m [18], and the surface is populated by more than 200 boulders >10 m in diameter. The largest boulders exceed 30 m and appear predominantly at high latitudes.…”

Section: Spatially Resolved Surface Morphology and Boulder Distributionmentioning

confidence: 53%

“…However, the thermal inertia of Cold Bokkeveld (the lowest among measured meteorites [27]) is still considerably larger than Bennu's global value. We investigated the thermal inertia of the boulders on Bennu by running a two-component thermal model constrained by the spatial density of boulders presented in a companion paper [18]. We find that the upper limit on the average boulder thermal inertia on Bennu is 1400 J m -2 K -1 s -1/2 .…”

Section: Physical Properties Of Bouldersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…5). The presence of intact blocks about 1/10th of the diameter of Bennu suggests that the largest boulders are fragments from the catastrophic disruption of its parent body and the subsequent rubble-pile reaccumulation [18,25]. Thus, the large (≥ 20 m) boulders evident in Bennu's relatively shallow CSFD represent some of the oldest intact material on the surface.…”

Section: Spatially Resolved Surface Morphology and Boulder Distributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A shallow power-law index suggests boulder production dominated by impact processes [24]. While multiple candidate impact craters [18] are visible across the surface (Fig. 2), the events that formed them could not produce the large observed boulder population ( Supplementary Fig.…”

Section: Spatially Resolved Surface Morphology and Boulder Distributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Properties of rubble-pile asteroid (101955) Bennu from OSIRIS-REx imaging and thermal analysis

et al. 2019

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Christensen, P. R.; Drouet d'Aubigny, C. Y.; Hamilton, V. E.; Reuter, D. C.; Rizk, B.; Simon, A. A.; Asphaug, E.; Bandfield, J. L.; Barnouin, O. S.; Barucci, M. A.; Bierhaus, E. B.; Binzel, R. P.; Bottke, W. F.; Bowles, N. E.; Campins, H.; Clark, B. C.; Clark, B. E.; Connolly, H. C.; Daly, M. G.; Leon, J. de; Delbo', M.; Deshapriya, J. D. P.; Elder, C. M.; Fornasier, S.; Hergenrother, C. W.; Howell, E. S.; Jawin, E. R.; Kaplan, H. H.; Kareta, T. R.; Le Corre, L.; Li, J.-Y.; Licandro, J.; Lim, L. F.; Michel, P.; Molaro, J.; Nolan, M. C.; Pajola, M.; Popescu, M.; Garcia, J. L. Rizos; Ryan, A.; Schwartz, S. R.; Shultz, N.; Siegler, M. A.; Smith, P. H.; Tatsumi, E.; Thomas, C. A.; Walsh, K. J.; Wolner, C. W. V.; Zou, X.-D. and Lauretta, D. S. (2019). Properties of rubble-pile asteroid (101955) Bennu from OSIRIS-REx imaging and thermal analysis. Nature Astronomy, 3 pp. 341-351. For guidance on citations see FAQs.Length of main text: 2956 words Length of methods: 3605 words Length of legends: 565 words Number of references: 53 main text, 69 including methods and supplementary information (refs 67 to 69 are cited in the SI only) , we show that asteroid (101955) Bennu's surface is globally rough, dense with boulders and low in albedo. The number of boulders is surprising given Bennu's moderate thermal inertia, suggesting that simple models linking thermal inertia to particle size do not adequately capture the complexity relating these properties. At the same time, we find evidence for a wide range of particle sizes with distinct albedo characteristics. Our findings imply that ages of Bennu's surface particles span from the disruption of the asteroid's parent body (boulders) to recent in situ production (micron-scale particles).

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Section: Spatially Resolved Surface Morphology and Boulder Distributionmentioning

confidence: 53%

Section: Physical Properties Of Bouldersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Spatially Resolved Surface Morphology and Boulder Distributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Spatially Resolved Surface Morphology and Boulder Distributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Properties of rubble-pile asteroid (101955) Bennu from OSIRIS-REx imaging and thermal analysis

et al. 2019

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“…The overall bulk density of the asteroid was found to be 1190 kg/m 3 , the same value as Ryugu, and both of their macro-porosities were estimated to be up to 50%, consistent with being a 'rubble pile ' Scheeres et al (2019); Watanabe et al (2019). The surface of both Bennu and Ryugu were seen to be uniformly covered by boulders across a large size distribution, with very few regions covered by finer regolith Walsh et al (2019); Sugita et al (2019). At a morphological level, both Ryugu and Bennu have many similarities, and thus future comparisons between the bodies will be of great interest.…”

Section: Discussion and Prospectivementioning

confidence: 76%