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ABSTRACT The samples returned from asteroid Ryugu were collected both at its surface and at its subsurface by Hayabusa2 and can, thus, provide information on the space weathering of C-type
asteroids at different depths without terrestrial contamination. The near-infrared hyperspectral microscope MicrOmega gathered data on the –OH feature at ~2.7 μm for 177 individual grains
from the two collection sites. Here, through a spectral analysis of these data, we show that the position of the band peak can be used as an indicator of the degree of space weathering. Most
subsurficial grains do not present space weathering features, indicating that Ryugu’s subsurface layers have never been exposed to the interplanetary medium. Moreover, the ~2.7 μm feature
for the Ryugu samples is narrower than that observed for CI chondrites, which are the closest meteorite analogues to Ryugu, suggesting that these contain more absorbed molecular water than
Ryugu due to terrestrial aqueous contamination. We conclude that Ryugu samples should be considered as a reference for the primordial water abundance within primitive bodies. Access through
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OTHERS CONSTRAINTS ON SOLAR SYSTEM EARLY EVOLUTION BY MICROMEGA ANALYSIS OF RYUGU CARBONATES Article 12 January 2023 FIRST COMPOSITIONAL ANALYSIS OF RYUGU SAMPLES BY THE MICROMEGA
HYPERSPECTRAL MICROSCOPE Article 20 December 2021 PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS OF THE HAYABUSA2 SAMPLES RETURNED FROM C-TYPE ASTEROID RYUGU Article Open access 20 December 2021 DATA AVAILABILITY The
average spectrum of each grain assessed in this study is available from the Ryugu Sample Database System (JAXA) at https://darts.isas.jaxa.jp/curation/hayabusa2/. Source data are provided
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scientific and technical contributions to this successful mission. We thank the National Centre for Space Studies, which is the French space agency, for its support. T.Y. received support
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AUTHOR INFORMATION AUTHORS AND AFFILIATIONS * Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale, Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, Orsay, France T. Le Pivert-Jolivet, R. Brunetto, C. Pilorget, J.-P. Bibring,
V. Hamm, C. Lantz, D. Loizeau, L. Riu, D. Baklouti, F. Poulet, A. Aléon-Toppani, J. Carter & Y. Langevin * Institut Universitaire de France, Paris, France C. Pilorget * Institute of
Space and Astronautical Science, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Sagamihara, Japan A. Nakato, K. Hatakeda, K. Yogata, T. Okada, T. Yada, Y. Hitomi, K. Kumagai, A. Miyazaki, K. Nagashima,
M. Nishimura, T. Usui, M. Abe, T. Saiki, S. Tanaka, S. Nakazawa & Y. Tsuda * Marine Works Japan, Ltd., Yokosuka, Japan K. Hatakeda, Y. Hitomi & K. Kumagai * ESAC, ESA, Madrid, Spain
L. Riu * University of Tokyo, Bunkyo, Tokyo, Japan T. Okada * The Graduate University for Advanced Studies (SOKENDAI), Hayama, Japan M. Abe, S. Tanaka & Y. Tsuda * University of Tokyo,
Kashiwa, Japan S. Tanaka * Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan S. Watanabe Authors * T. Le Pivert-Jolivet View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar *
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Scholar CONTRIBUTIONS R.B., C.P., J.-P.B., A.N., V.H., K.H., D.L., L.R., K.Y., T.O., T.Y., T.U., M.A., T.S., S.T., S.N., Y.T. and S.W. conceived and designed the experiments. T.L.P.-J.,
R.B., C.P., J.-P.B., A.N., K.H., C.L., D.L., L.R., K.Y., T.O., T.Y., Y.H., K.K., A.M., K.N. and M.N. performed the experiments. T.L.P.-J., R.B., C.P., J.-P.B., A.N., C.L., D.L., L.R., D.B.,
F.P., A.A.-T., J.C. and Y.L. analysed the data. T.L.P.-J., R.B., C.P., A.N., V.H., K.H., C.L., D.L., L.R. and K.Y. contributed materials and analysis tools. T.L.P.-J., R.B., C.P., J.-P.B.,
A.N., C.L., L.R., D.B., F.P. and T.O. wrote, discussed and commented on the paper. CORRESPONDING AUTHOR Correspondence to T. Le Pivert-Jolivet. ETHICS DECLARATIONS COMPETING INTERESTS The
authors declare no competing interests. PEER REVIEW PEER REVIEW INFORMATION _Nature Astronomy_ thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work.
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SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Supplementary Figs. 1–17 and Tables 1–4. SOURCE DATA SOURCE DATA FIG. 2 Table of peak positions and band depths for all grains assessed in this study. SOURCE DATA
FIG. 4 Table of peak positions and band depths for all grains assessed in this study. SOURCE DATA FIG. 5 Table of peak positions and band depths for all grains assessed in this study. RIGHTS
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permissions ABOUT THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE Le Pivert-Jolivet, T., Brunetto, R., Pilorget, C. _et al._ Space weathering record and pristine state of Ryugu samples from MicrOmega
spectral analysis. _Nat Astron_ 7, 1445–1453 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-023-02092-9 Download citation * Received: 21 September 2022 * Accepted: 04 September 2023 * Published: 05
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