NOLAN , M

The OSIRIS-REx mission collected a sample from the surface of the asteroid (101955) Bennu in 2020 October. Here, we study the impact of the OSIRIS-REx Touch-and-Go Sampling Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM) interacting with the surface of an asteroid in the framework of granular physics. Traditional approaches to estimating the penetration depth...

Rubble pile asteroids are widely understood to be composed of reaccumulated debris following a catastrophic collision between asteroids in the main asteroid belt, where each disruption can make a family of new asteroids. Near-Earth asteroids Ryugu and Bennu have been linked to collisional families in the main asteroid belt, but surface age...

An asteroid's history is determined in large part by its strength against collisions with other objects1,2 (impact strength). Laboratory experiments on centimetre-scale meteorites3 have been extrapolated and buttressed with numerical simulations to derive the impact strength at the asteroid scale4,5. In situ evidence of impacts on boulders on...