Extended Data Fig. 8: Modeled craters for a 2.6 Myr NEA age, and comparison with Ryugu and Itokawa craters.

a, This plot layers additional data sets over the style of presentation in Fig. 4. As in that figure, the black data are the measured differential crater SFD of Bennu, the purple data are the median results of 100 runs for a 2.6 Myr NEA flux model, the gray band represents the 99% range of the simulation results. Here we also include the results of one run, showing a specific case of the TS2018 scaling (green data), 100 Pa strength scaling (blue data), and gravity scaling (orange data); these data illustrate the different resulting crater populations for the three scaling laws given the same impactors. Unlike TS2018 scaling, strength- and gravity scaling continue to produce smaller craters given smaller impactors. However, above the fishhook diameter range, the strength data fall in the range of the TS2018 results, indicating that cratering strengths ≤100 Pa give comparable results to TS2018 for diameters larger than the armoring regime. TS2018 scaling approaches gravity scaling at the largest diameters on Bennu. Given that Bennu has been dynamically decoupled from the main belt for 2.6 Myr, TS2018 indicates that all craters 5 m diameter could have been formed by NEA impactors. b, c, and d are a comparison between Bennu’s crater population (black) with Ryugu (gray) and Itokawa (brown) in cumulative, differential, and R-format, respectively.