Primordial porous structure of chondrite parent bodies due to self-gravity

TL;DR

This study estimates the primordial porosity of chondrite parent bodies by measuring compaction behavior of analog materials, revealing they likely had higher porosity than present-day meteorites, especially carbonaceous types.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental estimate of the primordial porosity structure of chondrite parent bodies based on compaction measurements of analog samples.

Findings

Primordial parent bodies had higher porosity than current meteorites.

Higher matrix volume fraction may explain high porosity in carbonaceous chondrites.

Compaction curves follow a power-law form, enabling porosity estimation.

Abstract

The porosity of an asteroid is important when studying the evolution of our solar system through small bodies and for planning mitigation strategies to avoid disasters due to asteroid impacts. Our knowledge of asteroid porosity largely relies on meteorites sampled on Earth. However, chondrites sampled on Earth are suggested to be sorted by strength. In this study, we obtained an estimate of the most porous structure of primordial "granular" chondrite parent bodies based on measurements of the compaction behavior of chondrite component analogs. We measured compaction curves of dust and dust-bead mixture samples. The dust sample consisted of various spherical and irregular particles with diameters on the order of 10^0-10^1 $\mu$m. The mixture sample consisted of dust and beads with different dust volume fractions (~0.2-1). We used 1.5 and 4.8 $\mu$m particles as dust as a first step, although the typical size of materials in matrix may be much smaller. We approximated the compaction curve of each sample with a power-law form and calculated the porosity structure of the primordial chondrite parent bodies using the experimental results. Our results show that the primordial parent bodies are likely to have higher porosity than the chondrites. Moreover, the relatively higher volume fraction of the matrix may be one of the reasons why most meteorites with high porosity are carbonaceous chondrites.