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Register a new userInternal rubble properties of asteroid (101955) Bennu
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Exploration of asteroid (101955) Bennu by the OSIRIS-REx mission has provided an in-depth look at this rubble-pile near-Earth asteroid. In particular, the measured gravity field and the detailed shape model of Bennu indicate significant heterogeneities in its interior structure, compatible with a lower density at its center. Here we combine gravity inversion methods with a statistical rubble-pile model to determine the density and size-frequency distribution (SFD) index of the rubble that constitutes Bennu. The best-fitting models indicate that the SFD of the interior is consistent with that observed on the surface, with a cumulative SFD index of approximately $-2.9$. The rubble bulk density is approximately $1.35$ g/cm$^3$, corresponding to a $12$% macro-porosity. We find the largest rubble particle to be approximately $145$ m, whereas the largest void is approximately $10$ m.
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In May of 2011, NASA selected the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) asteroid sample return mission as the third mission in the New Frontiers program. The other two New Frontiers missions are New Horizons, which explored Pluto during a flyby in July 2015 and is on its way for a flyby of Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69 on Jan. 1, 2019, and Juno, an orbiting mission that is studying the origin, evolution, and internal structure of Jupiter. The spacecraft departed for near-Earth asteroid (101955) Bennu aboard an United Launch Alliance Atlas V 411 evolved expendable launch vehicle at 7:05 p.m. EDT on September 8, 2016, on a seven-year journey to return samples from Bennu. The spacecraft is on an outbound-cruise trajectory that will result in a rendezvous with Bennu in August 2018. The science instruments on the spacecraft will survey Bennu to measure its physical, geological, and chemical properties, and the team will use these data to select a site on the surface to collect at least 60 g of asteroid regolith. The team will also analyze the remote-sensing data to perform a detailed study of the sample site for context, assess Bennus resource potential, refine estimates of its impact probability with Earth, and provide ground-truth data for the extensive astronomical data set collected on this asteroid. The spacecraft will leave Bennu in 2021 and return the sample to the Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR) on September 24, 2023.
The stability and topological structure of equilibrium points in the potential field of the asteroid 101955 Bennu have been investigated with a variable density and rotation period. A dimensionless quantity is introduced for the nondimensionalization of the equations of motion, and this quantity can indicate the effect of both the rotation period and bulk density of the asteroid. Using the polyhedral model of the asteroid Bennu, the number and position of the equilibrium points are calculated and illustrated by a contour plot of the gravitational effective potential field. The topological structure and the stability of the equilibrium points are also investigated using the linearized method. The results show that there are nine equilibrium points in the potential field of the asteroid Bennu, eight in the exterior of the body and one in the interior of the body. Moreover, bifurcation will occur with a variation of the density and rotation period. Different equilibrium points will encounter each other and mix together. Thus, the number of equilibrium points will change. The stability and topological structure of the equilibrium points will also change because of the variation of the density and rotation period of the asteroid. When considering the error of the density of Bennu, the range of the dimensionless quantity covers the critical values that will lead to bifurcation. This means that the stability of the equilibrium points is uncertain, making the dynamical environment of Bennu much more complicated. These bifurcations can help better understand the dynamic environment of an irregular-shaped asteroid.
The target asteroid of the OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission, (101955) Bennu (formerly 1999 RQ$_{36}$), is a half-kilometer near-Earth asteroid with an extraordinarily well constrained orbit. An extensive data set of optical astrometry from 1999--2013 and high-quality radar delay measurements to Bennu in 1999, 2005, and 2011 reveal the action of the Yarkovsky effect, with a mean semimajor axis drift rate $da/dt = (-19.0 pm 0.1)times 10^{-4}$ au/Myr or $284pm 1.5;rm{m/yr}$. The accuracy of this result depends critically on the fidelity of the observational and dynamical model. As an example, neglecting the relativistic perturbations of the Earth during close approaches affects the orbit with $3sigma$ significance in $da/dt$. The orbital deviations from purely gravitational dynamics allow us to deduce the acceleration of the Yarkovsky effect, while the known physical characterization of Bennu allows us to independently model the force due to thermal emissions. The combination of these two analyses yields a bulk density of $rho = 1260pm70,rm{kg/m^3}$, which indicates a macroporosity in the range $40pm10$% for the bulk densities of likely analog meteorites, suggesting a rubble-pile internal structure. The associated mass estimate is $(7.8pm0.9)times 10^{10}, rm{kg}$ and $GM = 5.2pm0.6,rm{m^3/s^2}$. Bennus Earth close approaches are deterministic over the interval 1654--2135, beyond which the predictions are statistical in nature. In particular, the 2135 close approach is likely within the lunar distance and leads to strong scattering and therefore numerous potential impacts in subsequent years, from 2175--2196. The highest individual impact probability is $9.5times 10^{-5}$ in 2196, and the cumulative impact probability is $3.7times 10^{-4}$, leading to a cumulative Palermo Scale of -1.70.
In this work, we study the dynamics of particles around Bennu. The goal is to understand the stability, evolution, and final outcome of the simulated particles around the asteroid. According to the results, the particle sizes can be divided into two main groups depending on their behavior. Particles smaller than a centimeter are quickly removed from the system by solar radiation pressure, while the dynamics of particles larger than a few centimeters is dominated by the gravitational field of Bennu. Because of its shape and spin period, Bennu has eight equilibrium points around it. The structure of the phase space near its equatorial surface is directly connected to these equilibrium points. Therefore, we performed numerical simulations to obtain information about the orbital evolution near the equilibrium points. The results show that most of the particles larger than a few centimeters fall in the equatorial region close to the Kingfisher area or close to the region diametrically opposite to it. In contrast, almost none of these particles fall in the equatorial region close to the Osprey area. In addition, we also performed computational experiments considering a spherical cloud of particles initially orbiting Bennu. Most of the particles in prograde orbits fall on the surface within our integration period, which was limited to 1.14 years. The particles preferentially fall near high-altitude regions at low equatorial latitudes and close to the north pole. The mid-latitudes are those more depleted of falls, as in the Nightingale and Sandpiper areas.
A small number of anomalously bright boulders on the near-Earth, rubble-pile asteroid (101955) Bennu were recently identified as eucritic material originating from asteroid (4) Vesta. Building on this discovery, we explored the global presence of exogenic boulders on Bennu. Our analysis focused on boulders larger than 1 m that show the characteristic 1-micron pyroxene absorption band in the four-color MapCam data from the OSIRIS-REx mission. We confirm the presence of exogenic boulders similar to eucrites and find that mixtures of eucrites with carbonaceous material is also a possible composition for some boulders. Some of the exogenic boulders have spectral properties similar to those of ordinary chondrite (OC) meteorites, although the laboratory spectra of these meteorites have a higher albedo than those measured on Bennu, which could be explained by either a grain size effect, the presence of impact melt, or optical mixing with carbonaceous material owing to dust coating. Our Monte Carlo simulations predict that the median amount of OC mass added to the parent body of Bennu is 0.055% and 0.037% of the volume of a 100- and 200-km-diameter parent body, respectively. If Bennu was a uniformly mixed byproduct of parent body and S-type projectiles, the equivalent mass of OC material would be a sphere with a diameter of 36 to 40 m (or a volume of 24,200 to 33,600 m3). The total amount of OC material in the interior of Bennu estimated from the MapCam data is slightly higher (91,000-150,000 m3).
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