Hydrothermal alteration of Ryugu from a disruptive impact recorded in a returned sample

Abstract

Abstract Samples returned from C-type asteroid (162173) Ryugu by JAXA’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft provide material free of terrestrial alteration for analysis. Previous work shows that Ryugu was aqueously altered below 100 °C under neutral to alkaline fluid conditions. Such low-temperature alteration was unexpected based on spacecraft observations which indicated that Ryugu’s surface may be thermally altered. Here we show that sulfides in a single particle (A0016) returned by the Hayabusa2 mission are unlike any previously described from Ryugu. The presence and compositions of violarite, pyrite, chalcopyrite, pentlandite, and Fe-depleted pyrrhotite grains provide direct evidence for hydrothermal alteration between 230 to 400 °C under highly oxidizing and acidic fluid conditions. We hypothesize that A0016 was near to the site of a large impact that disrupted Ryugu’s precursor parent body.