Carbonates in Ryugu and Bennu with MicrOmega: Insights into Aqueous Alteration on Primitive Asteroids

Abstract Aqueous alteration was one of the earliest geological processes in the solar system and significantly shaped the mineralogical diversity observed in primitive minor bodies. Carbonate minerals are reliable tracers of the physicochemical conditions during alteration processes on early planetesimals. We present a comprehensive characterization of carbonates in the returned samples of asteroids Ryugu and Bennu, performed using the MicrOmega near-infrared hyperspectral microscope. We identify two major carbonate species, dolomite (CaMg(CO 3 ) 2 ) and breunnerite ((Mg,Fe)CO 3 ), with similar relative abundances and mean elemental compositions on both asteroids, indicating analogous aqueous alteration pathways on their parent bodies. A general spatial separation of dolomite and breunnerite is observed, indicating that at size scales of 10–100 μ m, alteration conditions favored the precipitation of one species over the other. We interpret this as evidence for a spatially heterogeneous local water–rock ratio, suggesting that a high local water–rock ratio suppresses the formation of dolomite, instead favoring precipitation of breunnerites. Based on relative carbonate abundances, we conclude that chambers A (sampling the surface) and C (predominantly sampling the subsurface) of the Ryugu sample contain different mixtures of lithologies with different alteration degrees.