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Asteroids

Shaken on impact

Nature volume 436, pages 335–336 (2005)Cite this article

A single recent impact may have modified the craters on the asteroid Eros into the pattern we see today. This finding has implications for how we view the structure of asteroids — and for addressing any hazards they present.

Asteroids seem to get stranger with every passing year. Thomas and Robinson's finding (page 366 of this issue)1 — that impact-induced vibrations of an asteroid may be the dominant mechanism reshaping its surface — shakes things up still further. In the case of the well-studied asteroid Eros, the authors link this resurfacing mechanism to the recent impact of a meteoroid that left a particularly large crater. They thereby make the first detailed mechanical connection between surface observations and an asteroid's global geology. The authors conclude that Eros, a rocky asteroid 33 by 13 by 13 kilometres in size, has a relatively homogeneous interior that transmits seismic shocks efficiently and is mantled by a hundred metres or more of regolith. (Regolith is the loose soil-like material familiar from pictures of the surface of the Moon.) This might not come as a surprise, given Eros's appearance2, but for the first time, the authors provide convincing evidence that makes this conclusion more than just reasonable conjecture.

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Figure 1: Captured asteroid.

NASA

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth Sciences, University of California, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, 95064, California, USA

    Erik Asphaug

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  1. Erik Asphaug
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Asphaug, E. Shaken on impact. Nature 436, 335–336 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/436335a

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