Related papers: Material Science and Impact Crater Formation
We investigate the melt production of planetary impacts as a function of planet size ($R/R_\mathrm{Earth}$=0.1-1.5), impactor size ($L$=1-1000 km), and core size ratio ($R_\mathrm{core}/R$=0.2-0.8) using a combination of parameterized…
Runaway electron termination on plasma facing components can trigger material explosions that are accompanied by the expulsion of fast solid debris. Due to the large kinetic energies of the ejected dust particles, their subsequent…
A fascinating class of patterns, often encountered in nature as meandering cracks on rocks, dried-out fields and tectonic plates is produced by the fracture of solids. Here we report the observation and modeling of an unusual type of…
Recently published crater statistics on the small asteroids 25143 Itokawa and 433 Eros show a significant depletion of craters below approx. 100 m in diameter. Possible mechanisms that were brought up to explain this lack of craters were…
The origin of Mercury's high iron-to-rock ratio is still unknown. In this work we investigate Mercury's formation via giant impacts and consider the possibilities of a single giant impact, a hit-and-run, and multiple collisions in one…
Observations of protoplanetary disks with high angular resolution using an ALMA interferometer showed that ring-shaped structures are often visible in their images, indicating strong disturbances in the disks. The mechanisms of their…
Asteroids have called the attention of researchers around the world. Its chemical and physical composition can give us important information about the formation of our Solar System. In addition, the hypothesis of mining some of these…
Cohesive granular materials, like wet sand, retain their shape before yielding under stress. This solid-like behavior is associated with elasticity. As the loading increases, the material typically flows. However, cohesive materials can…
At a macroscopic level, concepts such as top spin, back spin and rolling are commonly used to describe the collision of balls and surfaces. Each term refers to an aspect of the coupling of rotational motion during the collision of a…
Giant impacts dominate the late stages of accretion of rocky planets. They contribute to the heating, melting, and sometimes vaporizing of the bodies involved in the impacts. Due to fractionation during melting and vaporization,…
Observations suggest that impactors and volcanism are connected, but the mechanism that links these events is unknown. This research proposes the impact exsolution hypothesis to explain how planetary scale collisions trigger volcanism. This…
In the standard theory of the large scale structure formation, matter accretes onto high density perturbations via gravitational instability. Collisionless dark matter forms caustics around such structures, while collisional baryonic matter…
New insights into the history of the inner solar system are derived from the impact cratering record of the Moon, Mars, Venus and Mercury, and from the size distributions of asteroid populations. Old craters from a unique period of heavy…
We investigate the fragmentation process of solid materials with crystalline and amorphous phases using the discrete element method. Damage initiates inside spherical samples above the contact zone in a region where the circumferential…
Using molecular-dynamics simulation, we study the crater volumes induced by energetic impacts ($v= 1- 250$ km/s) of projectiles containing up to N=1000 atoms. We find that for Lennard-Jones bonded material the crater volume depends solely…
In nuclear collisions at relativistic energies, matter is created which resembles closely the matter that filled all space until about 15 microseconds after the big bang. Here we summarize selected aspects of the research that led to the…
Almost all meteorite impacts occur at oblique incidence angles, but the effect of impact angle on crater size is not well understood, especially for large craters. To improve oblique impact crater scaling, we present a suite of simulations…
Metal pollution in white dwarf photospheres originates from the accretion of some combination of planets, moons, asteroids, comets, boulders, pebbles and dust. When large bodies reside in dynamically stagnant locations -- unable themselves…
Experiments on crater formation in the strength regime were conducted using projectiles of various shapes with an aspect ratio of ~1, including both solid and hollow interiors. The surface diameter, inner (pit) diameter, and depth of the…
The formation of deformed liquid marbles via impact of drops onto powder beds is analysed using experimental and computational modelling approaches. Experimentally, particular attention is paid to determining a relationship between the…