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Physical Analysis of Bennu Samples Reveals Regolith Production by Collisional Disruption on Near-Earth Asteroids

  • Authors: R.-L. Ballouz, A. J. Ryan, R. J. Macke, O. S. Barnouin, M. Lê, J. Moreno, S. Eckley, L. Hanton, A. Hildebrand, V. Toy-Edens, R. M. Meier, M. Berkson, E. Asphaug, S. Cambioni, C. G. Hoover, K. Jardine, E.R. Jawin, N. Lunning, J. L. Molaro, M. Pajola, K. Righter, K. T. Ramesh, F. Tusberti, K. J. Walsh, C. W. V. Wolner, D. N. DellaGiustina, H. C. Connolly, D. S. Lauretta

R.-L. Ballouz et al 2026 The Planetary Science Journal 7 .

  • Provider: AAS Journals

Caption: Figure 3.

Examples of craters (circled in magenta) on Bennu stones. Shown are XCT-derived shape models, visualized in the SBMT. (a) Crater 1 (∼0.6 mm diameter) on angular stone OREX-800047-0. (b) A crater (∼0.8 mm diameter) with a central pit and spallation zone on angular stone OREX-800063-0. The crater occurs on a smooth, flat region of the stone that may itself be an extended spallation region (magenta polygon) formed by the same impact. A hypothesized pre-impact surface is indicated in cyan. (c) Two craters on angular stone OREX-800067-0. (d) Crater 2, the largest crater we observed among the samples (2 mm diameter), on the other side of OREX-800067-0. (e) Crater 3, a submillimeter crater that is coincident with a linear fracture on hummocky stone OREX-800021-0. (f) A crater on the other side of OREX-800021-0. (g) Craters 4 and 5 (both ∼0.5 mm diameter) on angular stone OREX-800123-0. (h, i) Multiple millimeter-scale craters scattered on both sides of mottled stone OREX-800014-0, the largest stone returned by OSIRIS-REx.

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