A core dynamo in Vesta?

Abstract

A recent study of Fu et al. analysed the remaining magnetization in the eucrite meteorite Allan Hills A81001, which mostly likely has been produced during the cooling phase of the life of the asteroid Vesta, arguing that an ancient dynamo in the advective liquid metallic core could be set in. Using petrographic and paleomagnetic arguments, Fu et al. estimated a surface magnetic field of at least 2 μT. In this work, we verify the possibility that an early core dynamo took place in Vesta by analysing four different possible fully differentiated configurations of Vesta, characterized by different chondritic compositions, with the constraints on core size and density provided by Ermakov et al. We only incorporate the thermal convection, by neglecting the effects of the compositional convection, so our results in terms of magnetic Reynolds number and duration of the dynamo can be interpreted as a lower bound. The presence of a magnetic field would make Vesta a peculiar object of the Solar system, a `small-Earth', since it has also a differentiated structure like Earth and the magnetic field has preserved Vesta from the space weathering.