Porosity Shapes Giant Craters on Asteroid Psyche
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- 16 Psyche is a metal asteroid roughly the size of Massachusetts, shaped like a potato, with a large impact basin near its north pole.
- International team of scientists performed 3D impact simulations of the north polar region to test how interior structure and porosity affect crater morphology.
- Namya Baijal noted that porosity, often ignored in models, strongly influences crater depth‑diameter ratios and overall impact process.
- NASA's Psyche spacecraft is scheduled to arrive at 16 Psyche in August 2029, where it will test the study’s interior structure hypotheses.
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets published the study in 2026 (DOI: 10.1029/2025je009231), presenting several interior structure scenarios for 16 Psyche.
Why it matters: Planetary scientists gain a diagnostic tool for probing the interior of metal asteroids, allowing confirmation of whether 16 Psyche is a stripped planetary core and refining models of early solar‑system formation; the upcoming mission provides the first direct test of these predictions.
