Due to the strong absorption of ultraviolet (UV) light, nanoparticles such as zinc oxide (ZnO) can effectively improve the anti-UV aging performance of asphalt. However, the underlying mechanism of aging behaviors in nanoparticle-modified asphalt remains unclear. In this study, we experimentally investigated the anti-UV aging performances of asphalts modified by pure and Mg/Al-doped ZnO (Zn0.97Mg0.03O; Zn0.97Al0.03O). Furthermore, the underlying mechanism is revealed in detail by density functional theory (DFT) and molecular dynamics simulations. The results show that ZnO nanoparticles improve...