Hubble Space Telescope Observations of Active Asteroid (101955) Bennu

Abstract

Measurements from NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft revealed (101955) Bennu as a member of the active asteroid class. These objects exhibit transient, comet-like activity, commonly producing particle trails best observed from a vantage point close to the projected orbit plane. Accordingly, we obtained deep, high resolution observations of Bennu at orbit plane crossing in 2023, using the Hubble Space Telescope. We find no evidence for ejected material, and place model-dependent limits to the mass loss of dM/dt<0.12 kg/s from an analysis of the near-nucleus surface brightness profiles and dM/dt<6e-3 kg/s from the absence of a measurable particle trail. These limits are one to two orders of magnitude smaller than rates of mass loss measured remotely in other active asteroids and raise the possibility that low activity in many or most asteroids might fall beneath the prevailing thresholds offered by remote observations. Taking a still smaller mass loss rate estimated from OSIRIS-REx data, we calculate a specific rate L = 1e-7 kg/km2/s and extrapolate to the entire main-belt asteroid population. We estimate a cumulative dust production rate 850/r_min**1/2 [kg/s], where r_min is the minimum asteroid radius in meters. For r_min>1 m, this is<1% to 10% of the rate needed to sustain the Zodiacal cloud in steady state.