Related papers: PyNAPLE: Lunar Surface Impact Crater Detection
Three principal concepts regarding lunar formation have been examined: the accretion hypothesis, the mega-impact theory, and the multi-impact model. The multi-impact model amalgamates the salient facets of the mega-impact theory and the…
The trailing hemisphere of Dione is characterized by the Wispy Terrain, where it exhibits a hemispheric-scale network of extensional tectonic faults superposed on the moon's cratered surface. The faults likely reflect past endogenic…
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…
We extract interstellar scintillation parameters for pulsars observed by the NANOGrav radio pulsar timing program. Dynamic spectra for the observing epochs of each pulsar were used to obtain estimates of scintillation timescales,…
Impact craters are formed due to continuous impacts on the surface of planetary bodies. Most recent deep learning-based crater detection methods treat craters as circular shapes, and less attention is paid to extracting the exact shapes of…
We simulate the hypothesised collision between the proto-Earth and a Mars-sized impactor that created the Moon. Amongst the resulting debris disk in some impacts, we find a self-gravitating clump of material. It is roughly the mass of the…
Pluto and its satellites will be the most distant objects ever reconnoitered when NASA's New Horizons spacecraft conducts its intensive flyby of this system in 2015. The size-frequency distribution (SFD) of craters on the surfaces in the…
The current inventory of recent (fresh) impacts on Mars shows a strong bias towards areas of low thermal inertia. These areas are generally visually bright, and impacts create dark scours and rays that make them easier to detect. It is…
Segment lengths along major strike-slip faults exhibit a size dependency related to the brittle crust thickness. These segments result in the formation of the localized 'P-shear' deformation crossing and connecting the initial Riedels…
When a granular material is impacted by a sphere, its surface deforms like a liquid yet it preserves a circular crater like a solid. Although the mechanism of granular impact cratering by solid spheres is well explored, our knowledge on…
Optical navigation is a critical component for lunar orbiter and lander missions. Image-based crater identification has emerged as a promising technology for optical navigation due to the abundance of craters on the lunar surface and the…
We modify the probabilistic formalism developed by Elvis (2014) to estimate the number of lunar craters that contain ore-bearing asteroid remnants. When we consider craters at or above a threshold diameter of 1 km, we estimate an upper…
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…
Analysis of Lunar Laser Ranging (LLR) data provides science results: gravitational physics and ephemeris information from the orbit, lunar science from rotation and solid-body tides, and Earth science. Sensitive tests of gravitational…
Direct searches for dark matter with large-scale noble liquid detectors have become sensitive enough to detect the coherent scattering of local neutrinos. This will become a very challenging background to dark matter discovery in planned…
The Earth's Moon is thought to have formed by an impact between the Earth and an impactor around 4.5 billion years ago. This impact could have been so energetic that it could have mixed and homogenized the Earth's mantle. However, this view…
With the complexity of lunar exploration missions, the moon needs to have a higher level of autonomy. Environmental perception and navigation algorithms are the foundation for lunar rovers to achieve autonomous exploration. The development…
The Artemis program requires robotic and crewed lunar rovers for resource prospecting and exploitation, construction and maintenance of facilities, and human exploration. These rovers must support navigation for 10s of kilometers (km) from…
MoonLITE (Lunar InTerferometry Explorer) is an Astrophysics Pioneers proposal to develop, build, fly, and operate the first separated-aperture optical interferometer in space, delivering sub-mas science results. MoonLITE will leverage the…
Many attempts have already been made for detecting exomoons around transiting exoplanets but the first confirmed discovery is still pending. The experience that have been gathered so far allow us to better optimize future space telescopes…