The Vestal Cataclysm

Abstract

The currently operating Dawn mission shows asteroid 4 Vesta to be an extensively cratered body, with craters in a variety of morphologies and preservation states The crater size-frequency distribution for Vesta, modeled using the lunar chronology and scaled to impact frequencies modeled for Vesta, shows that both the north and south pole areas are ancient in age [1]. We have in our meteorite collection products from 4 Vesta in the form of the HED (howardite, eucrite, diogenite) meteorites. The HED parent body globally differentiated and fully crystallized by approx.4.56 Ga; subsequently, the eucrites were brecciated and heated by large impacts into the parent body surface, reflected in their disturbance ages [2, 3]. Dawn images have also shown that Vesta is covered with a well-developed regolith that is spectrally similar to howardite meteorites [4, 5]. Howardites are polymict regolith breccias made up mostly of clasts of eucrites and diogenites, but which also contain clasts formed by impact into the regolith. Impact-melt clast ages from howardites extend our knowledge of the impact history of Vesta, expanding on eucrite disturbance ages and helping give absolute age context to the observed crater-counts on Vesta.