(65) Cybele is the smallest asteroid at hydrostatic equilibrium, why?

<p class="p1">Context &#8211; Cybele asteroids constitute an appealing reservoir of primitive material genetically linked to the outer Solar system. The physical properties (size, shape) of the largest members can be directly measured with high-angular resolution imagers mounted on large (8-m class) telescopes.</p> <p class="p2">Aim &#8211; We took advantage of the bright apparition of the most iconic member of the Cybele population, (65) Cybele, in July and August 2021 to acquire high angular resolution images and optical light curves of the asteroid that were used to analyze its shape, topography and bulk properties (volume, density).</p> <p class="p2">Methods &#8211; Eight series of images were acquired with SPHERE+ZIMPOL on the Very Large Telescope (ESO Program ID 107.22QN.001; PI: Marsset) and combined with optical light curves to reconstruct the shape of the asteroid using the ADAM (Viikinkoski et al. 2015), MPCD (Capanna et al. 2013) and SAGE (Bartczak & Dudzi&#324;ski 2018) algorithms.</p> <p class="p2">Results &#8211; We will present Cybele&#8217;s bulk properties, including its volume-equivalent diameter and average density, in the context of other low-albedo P-type asteroids. We will show that Cybele&#8217;s shape and rotation state are entirely compatible to those of a Maclaurin equilibrium figure, opening up the possibility that D&#8805;260 km (M&#8805;1.4x10^<span class="s1">19 </span>kg) small bodies from the outer Solar System formed at equilibrium. We will further present the results of N-body simulations used to explore whether the equilibrium shape of Cybele is the result of a large resetting impact (similarly to the case of Hygiea; Vernazza et al. 2020), or if it is primordial (i.e., the result of early internal heating due to the radioactive decay of short- and long-lived radionuclides).</p>