{"id":39998,"date":"2026-01-13T14:23:21","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T13:23:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/?p=39998"},"modified":"2026-01-13T14:23:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T13:23:22","slug":"formation-of-asteroid-16-psyche-by-a-giant-impact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/?p=39998","title":{"rendered":"Formation of Asteroid (16) Psyche by a Giant Impact<span class=\"badge-status\" style=\"background:#787878\">OPEN ACCESS<\/span>&nbsp;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Saverio Cambioni, Benjamin P. Weiss, Namya Baijal, Robert Melikyan, Erik Asphaug, John B. Biersteker, Richard P. Binzel, William F. Bottke, Samuel W. Courville, Linda T. Elkins-Tanton, David J. Lawrence, Jos\u00e9 M. G. Merayo, Carol A. Raymond, Mark A. Wieczorek, Maria T. Zuber<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>JGR Planets, First Published: 13 January 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1029\/2025JE009317\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>LINK (OPEN ACCESS)<\/strong><\/a><br><a href=\"https:\/\/agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/epdf\/10.1029\/2025JE009317\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>PDF (OPEN ACCESS)<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"justify-text\">&#8220;Asteroid (16) Psyche is the largest likely metal-rich asteroid in the Solar System and the target of the NASA Psyche mission. The mission aims to determine whether the asteroid is the core of a differentiated planetesimal that lost its mantle via a giant impact. To prepare for spacecraft observations of the asteroid, we combine impact and geodynamic models to predict the magnetization, composition, and interior structure of a mantle-stripped core with the mass and density of Psyche. We show that Psyche-like bodies can form from a single giant impact, with a hit-and-run collision being the most likely scenario. After the impact, Psyche&#8217;s materials could have become magnetized while cooling in a dynamo field generated by its advecting core and\/or in the magnetic field of the solar nebula. The former is diagnostic of Psyche being a mantle-stripped core and is favored if Psyche&#8217;s primordial sulfur content and current metal content are \u227310 wt.% and \u227350 wt.%, respectively. A sulfur content \u227310 wt.% delays core solidification long enough for kamacite in the asteroid&#8217;s exterior to cool through the Curie temperature while the dynamo is still active. Formation of Psyche analogs with \u227350 wt.% metal content requires highly energetic impacts that more favorably occur after nebular-gas dissipation. Therefore, if the Psyche spacecraft&#8217;s Magnetometer, Gamma-Ray Neutron Spectrometer, and Gravity and Topography Investigations respectively measure strong (&gt;2&#215;10^14 Am\u00b2) magnetization, sulfur-rich surface provinces compatible with a bulk primordial sulfur content \u227310 wt.%, and metal content \u227350 wt.%, Psyche most likely formed as a mantle-stripped core.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Saverio Cambioni, Benjamin P. Weiss, Namya Baijal, Robert Melikyan, Erik Asphaug, John B. Biersteker, Richard P. Binzel, William F. Bottke, Samuel W. Courville, Linda T. Elkins-Tanton, David J. Lawrence, Jos\u00e9 M. G. Merayo, Carol A&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77,2495,73,5891,181],"tags":[2496,1854,937,113,1019,257,1262,4187,2298],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39998"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39998"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39999,"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39998\/revisions\/39999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}