Related papers: Complex crater formation by oblique impacts on the…
Accurate estimation of cratering asymmetry on the Moon is crucial for understanding Moon evolution history. Early studies of cratering asymmetry have omitted the contributions of high lunar obliquity and inclination. Here, we include lunar…
Although a large number of astronomical craters are actually produced by the oblique impacts onto inclined surfaces, most of the laboratory experiments mimicking the impact cratering have been performed by the vertical impact onto a…
Impactors of different types and sizes can produce a final crater of the same diameter on a planet under certain conditions. We derive the condition for such "isocrater impacts" from scaling laws, as well as relations that describe how the…
The identification of impact craters on planetary surfaces provides important information about their geological history. Most studies have relied on individual analysts who map and identify craters and interpret crater statistics. However,…
Metallic bodies that were the cores of differentiated bodies are sources of iron meteorites and are considered to have formed early in the terrestrial planet region before migrating to the main asteroid belt. Surface temperatures and mutual…
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 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…
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…
In the leading theory of lunar formation, known as the giant impact hypothesis, a collision between two planet-size objects resulted in a young Earth surrounded by a circumplanetary debris disk from which the Moon later accreted. The range…
A framework for the theoretical and analytical understanding of the impact crater-size frequency distribution is developed and applied to observed data from Mars and Earth. The analitical model derived gives the crater population,N, as a…
In the leading theory of lunar formation, known as the giant impact hypothesis, a collision between two planet-size objects resulted in a young Earth surrounded by a circumplanetary debris disk from which the Moon later accreted. The range…
Impact-cratering processes on small bodies are thought to be mainly controlled by the local material strength because of their low surface gravity, and craters that are as large as the parent bodies should be affected by the target…
Craters formed by the impact of agglomerated materials are commonly observed in nature, such as asteroids colliding with planets and moons. In this paper, we investigate how the projectile spin and cohesion lead to different crater shapes.…
The intense activity of cratering on the Moon and in the inner regions of the solar system was accomplished during the first 10^9 years [1]. Occasionally, some impact events occur even nowadays. In Section 1, we treat, from a historical…
Impact craters exist on various solid objects in the planetary system. A simplified analogy of the process of their formation is here analyzed by standard solid state physics and the so called dynamic quantized fracture mechanics. An…
Recent lunar crater studies have revealed an asymmetric distribution of rayed craters on the lunar surface. The asymmetry is related to the synchronous rotation of the Moon: there is a higher density of rayed craters on the leading…
The multiple impact hypothesis proposes that the Moon formed through a series of smaller collisions, rather than a single giant impact. This study advances our understanding of this hypothesis, as well as moon collisions in other contexts,…
Planetary impact events eject large volumes of surface material. Crater excavation processes are difficult to study, and in particular the details of individual ejecta fragments are not well understood. A related, enduring issue in…
We compare the number of lunar craters larger than 15 km across and younger than 1.1 Ga to the estimates of the number of craters that could have been formed for 1.1 Ga if the number of near-Earth objects and their orbital elements during…
The CosmoQuest virtual community science platform facilitates the creation and implementation of astronomical research projects performed by citizen scientists. One such project, called Moon Mappers, aids in determining the feasibility of…