New research on samples from the asteroid Ryugu, collected by Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft, reveals the significant effects of microscopic meteoroid bombardment on its surface. Micrometeoroids, accelerated by solar wind plasma to velocities up to 300 km/s, break oxygen-hydrogen bonds in phyllosilicates like serpentine, leading to dehydration. Molecular dynamics simulations showed that higher-velocity impacts increased the number of broken bonds from 200 to 2,000. Despite extreme surface temperature fluctuations, dehydration was mainly driven by kinetic energy from these impacts, with temperatures exceeding 1,000 Kelvin during collisions. Interestingly, the dissociated atoms can recombine to form water and silanol, partially counteracting dehydration. This study advances understanding of space weathering on asteroids and was published in The Astrophysical Journal.
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