Simulations Recreate Psyche's Massive Crater
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- University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory researchers simulated the formation of a ~30-mile-wide, 3-mile-deep crater near Psyche's north pole, testing two competing models of the asteroid's interior: a layered metallic core with a rocky mantle versus a uniform mixture of metal and silicate.
- Namya Baijal, the study's first author and an LPL doctoral candidate, found that porosity — the amount of empty space inside the asteroid — strongly affects crater depth, shape, and ejecta patterns, with porous asteroids producing deeper, steeper craters and less scattered surface debris.
- The team showed that a roughly 3-mile-wide impactor striking at ~3 miles per second — typical of main-belt collision speeds — reproduces the observed crater dimensions, and both layered and mixed-composition interior models remain consistent with the data.
- Asteroid 16 Psyche is the largest known metallic asteroid at 140 miles in diameter, the 10th-most massive in the main belt, and one of fewer than 10% of main-belt asteroids classified as metal-rich.
- The study, published in JGR Planets, gives NASA's Psyche mission — set to arrive in 2029 carrying instruments to study the asteroid's surface, gravity, magnetism, and composition — a set of predictions to match crater shapes, density variations, and metal-rich ejecta distributions against.
- Co-author Erik Asphaug likened the approach to inspecting an abandoned pizza parlor, arguing that if Psyche is an exposed planetary core, it would offer a window into a violent stage of planet formation that scientists cannot observe on Earth, Mars, or Venus.
Why it matters: The University of Arizona team's simulations give NASA a framework for interpreting Psyche spacecraft data in 2029, with porosity as a key variable for distinguishing a layered planetary core from a mixed-up rubble pile — a direct test of whether Psyche is an exposed planet core or a collision-blended remnant.
