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The impact flux over the last 3 Ga in the inner Solar System is commonly assumed to be constant through time. However, asteroid break-up events in the main belt may have been responsible for cratering spikes over the last ~2 Ga on the…
Meteorite craters on the asteroid surface obstruct the horizontal flow of solar wind, forming a plasma wake that modulates the particle fluxes and the electrostatic environment far downstream. In this study, surface charging properties of…
We present recent improvements of the modeling of the disruption of strength dominated bodies using the Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) technique. The improvements include an updated strength model and a friction model, which are…
How does the impact of a deformable droplet on a granular bed differ from that caused by a solid impactor of similar size and density? Here, we experimentally study this question and focus on the effect of intruder deformability on the…
In the crater function approach to the erosion of a solid surface by a broad ion beam, the average crater produced by the impact of an ion is used to compute the constant coefficients in the continuum equation of motion for the surface. We…
About 10% of the observed asteroids have rotational periods lower than P = 3 h and they seem to be relatively close to the spin barrier. Yet, the rotation has often been neglected in simulations of asteroid collisions. To determine the…
Numerous small bodies inevitably lead to cratering impacts on large planetary bodies during planet formation and evolution. As a consequence of these small impacts, a fraction of the target material escapes from the gravity of the large…
Impact craters are among the most prominent topographic features on planetary bodies. Crater scaling laws allow us to extract information about the impact histories on the host bodies. The pi-group scaling laws have been constructed based…
We investigate the impact of a free-falling water drop onto a granular layer. First, we constructed a phase diagram of crater shapes with two control parameters, impact speed and grain size. A low-speed impact makes a deeper cylindrical…
Understanding the formation mechanism of doublet craters is an important challenge for advancing knowledge in astronomy and granular physics. In this study, we investigated craters formed by low-velocity impacts of two steel spheres with…
We use numerical modeling to investigate the combined effects of impact velocity and acoustic fluidization on lunar craters in the simple-to-complex transition regime. To investigate the full scope of the problem, we employed the two widely…
Crater count equilibrium occurs when new craters form at the same rate that old craters are erased, such that the total number of observable impacts remains constant. Despite substantial efforts to understand this process, there remain many…
By means of novel volume-diameter aspect ratio diagrams, we ponder on the current conception of crater morphogenesis analyzing crater data from beam explosions, hypervelocity collisions and drop experiments and comparing them with crater…
We report on craters formed by balls dropped into dry, non-cohesive, granular media. By explicit variation of ball density $\rho_{b}$, diameter $D_{b}$, and drop height $H$, the crater diameter is confirmed to scale as the 1/4 power of the…
Ceres, the dwarf planet in the main asteroid belt, hosts heavily cratered surfaces where craters are continuously eroded mainly due to impact bombardment with a limited influence by non-impact processes. Over continuous bombardment, such…
Spin off events and impacts can eject boulders from an asteroid surface and rubble pile asteroids can accumulate from debris following a collision between large asteroids. These processes produce a population of gravitational bound objects…
Impact of a solid object onto a small-body surface can be modeled by the solid impact onto a hierarchically structured granular target. Impact drag force model for the hierarchically structured granular target is developed based on the…
In this fluid dynamics video, we present an experimental investigation of the shape of impact craters in granular materials. Complex crater shapes, including polygons, have been observed in many terrestrial planets as well as moons and…
The surfaces of solid objects in our planetary system are dappled with craters. Some of them are due to impacts of various solid projectiles into the surfaces of the objects. A smaller part of these craters is of volcanic origin. %Some of…
The overall shape, internal structure and surface morphology of small bodies such as asteroids and comets are determined to a large degree by the last global-scale impact or disruption event. Depending on the specific energy, impacts lead…