Simple Physics Solves Mystery of Diamond-Shaped Asteroids

New computer models using simple granular physics have been able to match the curious diamond shape of asteroids like Bennu and Ryugu.

IMAGE: Two diamond shaped, rubble-pile asteroids have been observed near Earth, and were photographed by unmanned spacecrafts in 2018 and 2019. In this image, a photograph of one of the asteroids, Bennu, is shown on the left. On the right, a simulation using the model is shown. As can be seen, the shape of the simulation matches that of Bennu. CREDIT: OIST

In our never-ending quest to understand the universe, and especially our own solar system, sometimes you have to go back to the same well over and over. We’ve already talked about several asteroids today and how difficult they can be to image. That’s particularly concerning when they are near-Earth asteroids, so we keep sending missions to asteroids to understand their composition and their history. All the information we gather can lead to not only learning more about the history of our solar system but also what kind of threat some of these asteroids present for our humble blue dot.

This brings me to two of our favorite asteroids — Bennu and Ryugu. Bennu, of course, was visited and sampled by the OSIRIS-REx mission after CosmoQuest’s dedicated team of volunteers mapped thousands of images and millions of rocks, boulders, and craters to help find a relatively safe place to sample. That sample will be here on Earth in 2023.

Ryugu was visited and sampled by JAXA’s Hyabusa2 spacecraft, and the sample from that mission is already here on Earth and being studied by scientists as…