Exploring the Interior Structure of (16) Psyche Through Basin‐Scale Collisions

Abstract Asteroid (16) Psyche, the largest member of the M/X‐type asteroids, may be the leftover core of a differentiated planetesimal. As such (16) Psyche will be explored in detail by NASA's discovery‐class Psyche mission in 2029. This will be the first mission to orbit a metal‐rich asteroid, or any asteroid in the 100–500 km size range. A key unresolved question, and the primary objective of the mission, is to infer whether Psyche is a core or a primordial, unmelted object. One way to constrain an asteroid's interior is through the study of its largest basins and how that affects its morphology, depth‐to‐diameter ratio, and surface distribution of metal. Here, in preparation for the mission, we model the impact formation of a significant basin at Psyche's north pole, identified in ground‐based imaging. Using high‐resolution Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics simulations applied to the asteroid's 3D shape, we show how modeling the formation of Psyche's impact basins will constrain its interior through comparison with mission observations and may allow us to infer whether Psyche has a core. We adopt two end‐member interior structures: a differentiated target with a metal core and mantle, and a mixed rock‐metal homogeneous target. We demonstrate the formation of the polar crater for both end‐members, and how Psyche's porosity and strength influence the depth‐diameter ratio, the final crater morphology, and the expected simple‐complex crater transition.