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American Astronomical Society, Astrophysical Journal Letters, 2(946), p. L43, 2023

DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/acc393

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Hydrogen Isotopic Composition of Hydrous Minerals in Asteroid Ryugu

Journal article published in 2023 by Laurette Piani ORCID, Kazuhide Nagashima, Noriyuki Kawasaki, Naoya Sakamoto ORCID, Ken-Ichi Bajo, Yoshinari Abe, Jérôme Aléon, Conel M. O.-’.-D. Alexander ORCID, Sachiko Amari ORCID, Yuri Amelin, Martin Bizzarro ORCID, Audrey Bouvier ORCID, Richard W. Carlson ORCID, Marc Chaussidon ORCID, Byeon-Gak Choi and other authors.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

Abstract Rock fragments of the Cb-type asteroid Ryugu returned to Earth by the JAXA Hayabusa2 mission share mineralogical, chemical, and isotopic properties with the Ivuna-type (CI) carbonaceous chondrites. Similar to CI chondrites, these fragments underwent extensive aqueous alteration and consist predominantly of hydrous minerals likely formed in the presence of liquid water on the Ryugu parent asteroid. Here we present an in situ analytical survey performed by secondary ion mass spectrometry from which we have estimated the D/H ratio of Ryugu’s hydrous minerals, D/HRyugu, to be [165 ± 19] × 10−6, which corresponds to δDRyugu = +59 ± 121‰ (2σ). The hydrous mineral D/HRyugu’s values for the two sampling sites on Ryugu are similar; they are also similar to the estimated D/H ratio of hydrous minerals in the CI chondrites Orgueil and Alais. This result reinforces a link between Ryugu and CI chondrites and an inference that Ryugu’s samples, which avoided terrestrial contamination, are our best proxy to estimate the composition of water at the origin of hydrous minerals in CI-like material. Based on this data and recent literature studies, the contribution of CI chondrites to the hydrogen of Earth’s surficial reservoirs is evaluated to be ∼3%. We conclude that the water responsible for the alteration of Ryugu’s rocks was derived from water ice precursors inherited from the interstellar medium; the ice partially re-equilibrated its hydrogen with the nebular H2 before being accreted on the Ryugu’s parent asteroid.