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Context. Most small asteroids (<50 km in diameter) are the result of the breakup of a larger parent body and are often considered to be rubble-pile objects. Similar structures are expected for the secondaries of small asteroid binaries,…
Characteristic shock effects in silica serve as a key indicator of historical impacts at geological sites. Despite this geological significance, atomistic details of structural transformations under high pressure and shock compression…
On September 26, 2022, NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission successfully impacted Dimorphos, the natural satellite of the binary near-Earth asteroid (65803) Didymos. Numerical simulations of the impact provide a means to…
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…
The structure of surfaces and interfaces of silica (SiO2) is investigated by large scale molecular dynamics computer simulations. In the case of a free silica surface, the results of a classical molecular dynamics simulation are compared to…
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…
Impact crater experiments in granular media traditionally involve loosely packed sand targets. However, this study investigates granular impact craters on both loosely and more tightly packed sand targets. We report granular vs. granular…
Morphological mapping is a fundamental step in studying the processes that shaped an asteroid surface. Yet, it is challenging and often requires multiple independent assessments by trained experts. Here, we present fast methods to detect…
Silica is an abundant component of the Earth whose crystalline polymorphs play key roles in its structure and dynamics. As the simplest silicates, understanding pure silica is a prerequisite to understanding the rocky part of the Earth, its…
Hera represents the European Space Agency's inaugural planetary defense space mission and plays a pivotal role in the Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment international collaboration with NASA DART mission that performed the first…
The DART spacecraft will impact Didymos's secondary, Dimorphos, at the end of 2022 and cause a change in the orbital period of the secondary. For simplicity, most previous numerical simulations of the impact used a spherical projectile…
Impact cratering plays a crucial role in shaping the surfaces of small bodies, satellites, and planets, providing insights into their formation and the history of the Solar System. Small bodies are often covered with low-cohesion regolith.…
We have monitored the Didymos-Dimorphos binary system in imaging polarimetric mode before and after the impact from the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission. A previous spectropolarimetric study showed that the impact caused a…
Impacts play a fundamental role in shaping the physical and chemical properties of the objects in our Solar System. Given the challenges in replicating such collisions through laboratory experiments, computer simulations are an important…
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…
NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission is the first full-scale test of the kinetic impactor method for asteroid deflection, in which a spacecraft intentionally impacts an asteroid to change its trajectory. DART represents an…
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…
We propose a new approach to obtain the nanoscale morphology of rough surfaces from low-temperature adsorption experiments. Our method is based on one of the most realistic models of rough surfaces formulated in terms of random correlated…
Granular material that is bound by the low gravity of a small asteroid is mobilized by slow velocity impacts. These splashes generated by impacts might play an important role in sculpting the asteroid's surface. In laboratory experiments we…
In 2022 the DART mission spacecraft impacted the asteroid Dimorphos, the secondary body of the binary Didymos system, ejecting a large number of dust particles, rocks and boulders. The ESA Hera mission will reach the system in 2026 for…