Tensile strength as an indicator of the degree of primitiveness of undifferentiated bodies

The extremely porous structure and low strength of most comets and their fragments is opposed to the properties observed in relatively pristine chondritic asteroids, even although both are sharing important chemical similitude. Laboratory experiments and observational evidence suggest that the original extremely porous aggregates that were born from the protoplanetary-disk-forming materials were highly retentive of water and organic compounds present in their forming environment. After consolidation, many of them experienced a particular dynamic history. Some bodies, quickly scattered during the formation of the giant planets and later stored in the Kuiper Belt (KB) or the Oort Cloud (OC) regions, would have suffered a lower degree of impact processing than previously thought. In such category would be comet 81P/Wild 2, whose materials have not experienced aqueous alteration. Other bodies originally volatile-rich that were transiting other regions with higher impact rate were experiencing progressively significant compaction processing, together with subsequent aqueous alteration and loss of volatiles. The release of water from hydrated minerals or interior ices, participated in soaking the forming materials, and transforming their initial mineralogy and physical properties. As a consequence of the physico-chemical evolution promoted by impact processing of undifferentiated bodies, most of the bodies present in the inner solar system are not representative of the planetesimals. Thus, highly porous progenitors and their fragments are the preferential sources of water and organics to the early Earth, even in higher amounts than previously thought.