Small Impactor Research Articles

Europa’s small impactor flux and seismic detection predictions

Europa is an attractive target for future lander missions due to its dynamic surface and potentially habitable sub-surface environment. Seismology has the potential to provide powerful new constraints on the internal structure using natural sources such as faults or meteorite impacts. Here we predict how many meteorite impacts are likely to be detected using a single seismic station on Europa to inform future mission planning efforts. To this end, we derive: (1) the current small impactor flux on Europa from Jupiter impact rate observations and models; (2) a crater diameter versus impactor energy scaling relation for icy moons by merging previous experiments and simulations; and (3) scaling relations for seismic signal amplitudes as a function of distance from the impact site for a given crater size, based on analogue explosive data obtained on Earth’s ice sheets. Finally, seismic amplitudes are compared to predicted noise levels and seismometer performance to determine detection rates. We predict detection of 0.002–20 small local impacts per year based on P-waves travelling directly through the ice crust. Larger regional and global-scale impact events, detected through mantle-refracted waves, are predicted to be extremely rare (10−8–1 detections per year), so are unlikely to be detected by a short duration mission. Estimated ranges include uncertainties from internal seismic attenuation, impactor flux, and seismic amplitude scaling. Internal attenuation is the most significant unknown and produces extreme uncertainties in the mantle-refracted P-wave amplitudes. Our nominal best-guess attenuation model predicts 0.002–5 local direct P detections and 6 × 10−6–0.2 mantle-refracted detections per year. Given that a plausible Europa landed mission will only last around 30 days, we conclude that impacts should not be relied upon for a seismic exploration of Europa. For future seismic exploration, faulting due to stresses in the rigid outer ice shell is likely to be a much more viable mechanism for probing Europa’s interior.

The current impact flux on Mars and its seasonal variation

We calculate the present-day impact flux on Mars and its variation over the martian year, using the current data on the orbital distribution of known Mars-crossing minor planets. We adapt the Öpik–Wetherill formulation for calculating collision probabilities, paying careful attention to the non-uniform distribution of the perihelion longitude and the argument of perihelion owed to secular planetary perturbations. We find that, at the current epoch, the Mars crossers have an axial distribution of the argument of perihelion, and the mean direction of their eccentricity vectors is nearly aligned with Mars’ eccentricity vector. These previously neglected angular non-uniformities have the effect of depressing the mean annual impact flux by a factor of about 2 compared to the estimate based on a uniform random distribution of the angular elements of Mars-crossers; the amplitude of the seasonal variation of the impact flux is likewise depressed by a factor of about 4–5. We estimate that the flux of large impactors (of absolute magnitude H<16) within ±30° of Mars’ aphelion is about three times larger than when the planet is near perihelion. Extrapolation of our results to a model population of meter-size Mars-crossers shows that if these small impactors have a uniform distribution of their angular elements, then their aphelion-to-perihelion impact flux ratio would be 11–15, but if they track the orbital distribution of the large impactors, including their non-uniform angular elements, then this ratio would be about 3. Comparison of our results with the current dataset of fresh impact craters on Mars (detected with Mars-orbiting spacecraft) appears to rule out the uniform distribution of angular elements.

Melting and mixing states of the Earth's mantle after the Moon-forming impact

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 appears to be inconsistent with geochemical studies that suggest that the Earth's mantle was not mixed by the impact. Another outcome of the impact is that this energetic impact melted the whole mantle, but the extent of mantle melting is not well understood even though it must have had a significant effect on the subsequent evolution of the Earth's interior and atmosphere. To understand the initial state of the Earth's mantle, we perform giant impact simulations using smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) for three different models: (a) standard: a Mars-sized impactor hits the proto-Earth, (b) fast-spinning Earth: a small impactor hits a rapidly rotating proto-Earth, and (c) sub-Earths: two half Earth-sized planets collide. We use two types of equations of state (MgSiO3 liquid and forsterite) to describe the Earth's mantle. We find that the mantle remains unmixed in (a), but it may be mixed in (b) and (c). The extent of mixing is most extensive in (c). Therefore, (a) is most consistent and (c) may be least consistent with the preservation of the mantle heterogeneity, while (b) may fall between. We determine that the Earth's mantle becomes mostly molten by the impact in all of the models. The choice of the equation of state does not affect these outcomes. Additionally, our results indicate that entropy gains of the mantle materials by a giant impact cannot be predicted well by the Rankine–Hugoniot equations. Moreover, we show that the mantle can remain unmixed on a Moon-forming timescale if it does not become mixed by the impact.

Characterization and Analysis of Near-Earth Objects via Lunar Impact Observations

Asteroid events such as the air blast above Chelyabinsk, Russia, in the spring of 2013 have highlighted the importance of understanding Earth's local asteroid population and the potential threat they pose. While much observational data exists for larger asteroids (those greater than 50 meters in diameter), comparatively little is known of the very small meteoroid population. This study utilized the non-illuminated part of the near side of the Moon as a detection screen upon which the faint flashes of small meteoroids hitting the lunar surface could be detected. Over 80 hours of observations were conducted between the fall of 2010 and the spring of 2013. The observed lunar area was determined nightly and used alongside the impact count to determine a meteoroid flux rate. Impact flashes were calibrated to extinction and color corrected reference stars to estimate the kinetic energies involved. Analysis indicated an average flux rate of 1.09×10−7km−2h−1, corresponding to 1 impactor larger than 3 centimeters in diameter observed every 30 minutes. Further, the size distribution dependence of small impactors was found to be consistent with the power law governing the larger-size meteoroid distribution. This data helps fix the low-end of the asteroid size distribution for solar system evolution models.

Microscopic impactor debris in the soil around Kamil crater (Egypt): Inventory, distribution, total mass, and implications for the impact scenario

AbstractWe report on the microscopic impactor debris around Kamil crater (45 m in diameter, Egypt) collected during our 2010 geophysical expedition. The hypervelocity impact of Gebel Kamil (Ni‐rich ataxite) on a sandstone target produced a downrange ejecta curtain of microscopic impactor debris due SE–SW of the crater (extending ~300,000 m2, up to ~400 m from the crater), in agreement with previous determination of the impactor trajectory. The microscopic impactor debris include vesicular masses, spherules, and coatings of dark impact melt glass which is a mixture of impactor and target materials (Si‐, Fe‐, and Al‐rich glass), plus Fe‐Ni oxide spherules and mini shrapnel, documenting that these products can be found in craters as small as few tens of meters in diameter. The estimated mass of the microscopic impactor debris (&lt;290 kg) derived from Ni concentrations in the soil is a small fraction of the total impactor mass (~10 t) in the form of macroscopic shrapnel. That Kamil crater was generated by a relatively small impactor is consistent with literature estimates of its pre‐atmospheric mass (&gt;20 t, likely 50–60 t).

Atmospheric mass loss during planet formation: The importance of planetesimal impacts

Quantifying the atmospheric mass loss during planet formation is crucial for understanding the origin and evolution of planetary atmospheres. We examine the contributions to atmospheric loss from both giant impacts and planetesimal accretion. Giant impacts cause global motion of the ground. Using analytic self-similar solutions and full numerical integrations we find (for isothermal atmospheres with adiabatic index γ=5/3) that the local atmospheric mass loss fraction for ground velocities vg≲0.25vesc is given by χloss=(1.71vg/vesc)4.9, where vesc is the escape velocity from the target. Yet, the global atmospheric mass loss is a weaker function of the impactor velocity vImp and mass mImp and given by Xloss≃0.4x+1.4x2-0.8x3 (isothermal atmosphere) and Xloss≃0.4x+1.8x2-1.2x3 (adiabatic atmosphere), where x=(vImpm/vescM). Atmospheric mass loss due to planetesimal impacts proceeds in two different regimes: (1) large enough impactors m≳2ρ0(πhR)3/2 (25km for the current Earth), are able to eject all the atmosphere above the tangent plane of the impact site, which ish/2R of the whole atmosphere, where h,R and ρ0 are the atmospheric scale height, radius of the target, and its atmospheric density at the ground. (2) Smaller impactors, but above m>4πρ0h3 (1km for the current Earth) are only able to eject a fraction of the atmospheric mass above the tangent plane. We find that the most efficient impactors (per unit impactor mass) for atmospheric loss are planetesimals just above that lower limit (2km for the current Earth). For impactor flux size distributions parametrized by a single power law, N(>r)∝r-q+1, with differential power law index q, we find that for 1<q<3 the atmospheric mass loss proceeds in regime (1) whereas for q>3 the mass loss is dominated by regime (2). Impactors with m≲4πρ0h3 are not able to eject any atmosphere. Despite being bombarded by the same planetesimal population, we find that the current differences in Earth’s and Venus’ atmospheric masses can be explained by modest differences in their initial atmospheric masses and that the current atmosphere of the Earth could have resulted from an equilibrium between atmospheric erosion and volatile delivery to the atmosphere from planetesimal impacts. We conclude that planetesimal impacts are likely to have played a major role in atmospheric mass loss over the formation history of the terrestrial planets.

Can large icy moons accrete undifferentiated?

The apparent moments of inertia of Callisto and Titan inferred from gravity data suggest incomplete differentiation of their interior, commonly attributed to slow and cold accretion. To understand whether such large icy moons can really avoid global melting and subsequent differentiation during their accretion, we have developed a 3D numerical model that characterizes the thermal evolution of a satellite growing by multi-impacts, simulating the satellite growth and thermal evolution for a body radius ranging from 100 to 2000km. The effects of individual impacts (energy deposition, excavation) are simulated and integrated for impactor sizes ranging from a few kilometers to one hundred kilometers, while for smaller impactors, a simplified approach with successive thin uniform layers spreading all over the satellite is considered. Our simulations show that the accretion rate plays only a minor role and that extending the duration of accretion does not significantly limit the increase of the internal temperature. The mass fraction brought by large impactors plays a more crucial role. Our results indicate that a satellite exceeding 2000km in radius may accrete without experiencing significant melting only if its accretion is dominated by small impactors (<a few kilometers) and that the conversion of impact energy into heat is unrealistically inefficient (<10–15%). Based on our simulations, if more than 10% of satellite mass was brought by satellitesimals larger than 1km, global melting for large bodies like Titan or Callisto cannot be avoided.

Investigation of the initial state of the Moon-forming disk: Bridging SPH simulations and hydrostatic models

According to the standard giant impact hypothesis, the Moon formed from a partially vaporized disk generated by a collision between the proto-Earth and a Mars-sized impactor. The initial structure of the disk significantly affects the Moon-forming process, including the Moon’s mass, its accretion time scale, and its isotopic similarity to Earth. The dynamics of the impact event determines the initial structure of a nearly hydrostatic Moon-forming disk. However, the hydrostatic and hydrodynamic models have been studied separately and their connection has not previously been well quantified. Here, we show the extent to which the properties of the disk can be inferred from Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamic (SPH) simulations. By using entropy, angular momentum and mass distributions of the SPH outputs as approximately conserved quantities, we compute the two-dimensional disk structure. We investigate four different models: (a) standard, the canonical giant impact model, (b) fast-spinning Earth, a collision between a fast-spinning Earth and a small impactor, (c) sub-Earths, a collision between two objects with half Earth’s mass, and (d) intermediate, a collision of two bodies whose mass ratio is 7:3. Our SPH calculations show that the initial disk has approximately uniform entropy. This is because the materials of different angular momenta are shocked to similar extents. The disks of the fast-spinning Earth and sub-Earths cases are hotter and more vaporized (∼80–90% vapor) than the standard case (∼20%). The intermediate case falls between these values. In the highly vaporized cases, our procedure fails to establish a unique surface density profile of the disk because the disk is unstable according to the Rayleigh criterion (the need for a monotonically increasing specific angular momentum with radius). In these cases, we estimate non-unique disk models by conserving global quantities (mass and total angular momentum). We also develop a semi-analytic model for the thermal structure of the disk, including the radial temperature structure and the vapor mass fraction. The model requires only two inputs: the average entropy and the surface density of the disk.

A 500-kiloton airburst over Chelyabinsk and an enhanced hazard from small impactors

Most large (over a kilometre in diameter) near-Earth asteroids are now known, but recognition that airbursts (or fireballs resulting from nuclear-weapon-sized detonations of meteoroids in the atmosphere) have the potential to do greater damage than previously thought has shifted an increasing portion of the residual impact risk (the risk of impact from an unknown object) to smaller objects. Above the threshold size of impactor at which the atmosphere absorbs sufficient energy to prevent a ground impact, most of the damage is thought to be caused by the airburst shock wave, but owing to lack of observations this is uncertain. Here we report an analysis of the damage from the airburst of an asteroid about 19 metres (17 to 20 metres) in diameter southeast of Chelyabinsk, Russia, on 15 February 2013, estimated to have an energy equivalent of approximately 500 (±100) kilotons of trinitrotoluene (TNT, where 1 kiloton of TNT = 4.185×10(12) joules). We show that a widely referenced technique of estimating airburst damage does not reproduce the observations, and that the mathematical relations based on the effects of nuclear weapons--almost always used with this technique--overestimate blast damage. This suggests that earlier damage estimates near the threshold impactor size are too high. We performed a global survey of airbursts of a kiloton or more (including Chelyabinsk), and find that the number of impactors with diameters of tens of metres may be an order of magnitude higher than estimates based on other techniques. This suggests a non-equilibrium (if the population were in a long-term collisional steady state the size-frequency distribution would either follow a single power law or there must be a size-dependent bias in other surveys) in the near-Earth asteroid population for objects 10 to 50 metres in diameter, and shifts more of the residual impact risk to these sizes.

Topographical analysis of lunar impact craters using SELENE images

Lunar craters provide ample opportunities to study and understand crater morphology because of their vast numbers. This paper focuses on the topographical mapping of 33 Mare craters (Flat- and Round-floor) of ∼2km diameter, using the SELENE DTM. Each crater was analyzed individually for its slope, regional topography and rim signature. The crater slope analysis revealed a small slope variation between the flat- and round-floor craters, in a similar diameter range, with some overlap between them. In the regional topographical analysis, the impact craters formed on the flat- and sloped-surface were analyzed in detail. The crater profile extracted through the rim crest was compared with its corresponding regional topographic profile (obtained over ∼3crater radii). Four types of crater occurrences were observed: type i, ii and iv craters were formed on sloped surface, whereas type iii craters are formed on a flat surface with an equally raised rim. The occurrences of the rim crest on type i and ii craters are on the topographically elevated side of the terrain. But in type iv craters, the rim crest occurs on the topographically lower side of the terrain. The type iv craters uplifted the topographically lower terrain, which depicts the alteration that had taken place due to the impact. This topographical analysis suggests that the surrounding topography should also be considered for understanding the craters. Finally, from the crater rim signature analysis, it was evident that the prominent V-shaped incisions on the rim are caused due to landslide/slumping and by small impactors. This DTM based simple lunar crater analysis revealed information about the crater association with their surrounding topography and their morphological variations on flat- and sloped- surface.

N-body simulations of oligarchic growth of Mars: Implications for Hf–W chronology

Dauphas and Pourmand [2011. Hf–W–Th evidence for rapid growth of Mars and its status as a planetary embryo. Nature 473, 489–492] estimated the accretion timescale of Mars to be 1.8−1.0+0.9Myr from the W isotopes of Martian meteorites. This timescale was derived assuming perfect metal–silicate equilibration between the impactor and the target's mantle. However, in the case of a small impactor most likely only a fraction of the target's mantle is involved in the equilibration, while only a small part of the impactor's core equilibrates in the case of a giant impact. We examined the effects of imperfect equilibration using results of high-resolution N-body simulations for the oligarchic growth stage. These effects were found to be small as long as a planetary embryo has a deep liquid magma ocean during its accretion. The effect due to partial involvement of the target's mantle in equilibration is small due to the low metal–silicate partition coefficient for W suggested from the low Hf/W ratio of the Martian mantle. The effect due to partial involvement of the impactor's core is also small because a large fraction of the embryo mass is delivered from small planetesimals, which are likely to fully equilibrate in the deep magma ocean on the embryo. The accretion timescale of Mars estimated by the Hf–W chronology is shorter than that expected for the minimum mass solar nebula model as long as more than 10% of each impactor's core re-equilibrates with the Martian mantle and the final stages of accretion are prolonged. This probably indicates that accretion of Mars rapidly proceeded due to solid and gas surface densities significantly larger than those for the minimum mass solar nebula or due to accretion of small fragments or pebbles.

CHARACTERIZATION OF ACTIVE MAIN BELT OBJECT P/2012 F5 (GIBBS): A POSSIBLE IMPACTED ASTEROID

In this work we characterize the recently discovered active main belt object P/2012 F5 (Gibbs), which was discovered with a dust trail > 7' in length in the outer main belt, 7 months prior to aphelion. We use optical imaging obtained on UT 2012 March 27 to analyze the central condensation and the long trail. We find nuclear B-band and R-band apparent magnitudes of 20.96 and 19.93 mag, respectively, which give an upper limit on the radius of the nucleus of 2.1 km. The geometric cross-section of material in the trail was ~ 4 x 10^8 m^2, corresponding to a dust mass of ~ 5 x 10^7 kg. Analysis of infrared images taken by the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer in September 2010 reveals that the object was below the detection limit, suggesting that it was less active than it was during 2012, or possibly inactive, just 6 months after it passed through perihelion. We set a 1-sigma upper limit on its radius during this time of 2.9 km. P/2012 F5 (Gibbs) is dynamically stable in the outer main belt on timescales of ~ 1 Gyr, pointing towards an asteroidal origin. We find that the morphology of the ejected dust is consistent with it being produced by a single event that occurred on UT 2011 July 7 $\pm$ 20 days, possibly as the result of a collision with a small impactor.

Efficiency of a wide-area survey in achieving short- and long-term warning for small impactors

We consider a network of telescopes capable of scanning all the observable sky each night and targeting Near-Earth objects (NEOs) in the size range of the Tunguska-like asteroids, from 160m down to 10m. We measure the performance of this telescope network in terms of the time needed to discover at least 50% of the impactors in the considered population with a warning time large enough to undertake proper mitigation actions. The warning times are described by a trimodal distribution and the telescope network has a 50% probability of discovering an impactor of the Tunguska class with at least one week of advance already in the first 10yr of operations of the survey. These results suggest that the studied survey would be a significant addition to the current NEO discovery efforts.

Rebuttal to the comment by Malhotra and Strom on “Constraints on the source of lunar cataclysm impactors”

Ćuk et al. (Ćuk, M. Gladman, B.J., Stewart, S.T. [2010]. Icarus 207 590–594) concluded that the the lunar cataclysm (late heavy bombardment) was recorded in lunar Imbrian era craters, and that their size distribution is different from that of main belt asteroids (which may have been the dominant pre-Imbrian impactors). This result would likely preclude the asteroid belt as the direct source of lunar cataclysm impactors. Malhotra and Strom (Malhotra, R., Strom, R.G. [2011]. Icarus) maintain that the lunar impactor population in the Imbrian era was the same as in Nectarian and pre-Nectarian periods, and this population had a size distribution identical to that of main belt asteroids. In support of this claim, they present an Imbrian size distribution made from two data sets published by Wilhelms et al. (Wilhelms, D.E., Oberbeck, V.R., Aggarwal, H.R. [1978]. Proc. Lunar Sci. Conf. 9, 3735–3762). However, these two data sets cannot be simply combined as they represent areas of different ages and therefore crater densities. Malhotra and Strom (Malhotra, R., Strom, R.G. [2011]. Icarus) differ with the main conclusion of Wilhelms et al. (Wilhelms, D.E., Oberbeck, V.R., Aggarwal, H.R. [1978]. Proc. Lunar Sci. Conf. 9, 3735–3762) that the Nectarian and Imbrian crater size distributions were different. We conclude that the available data indicate that the lunar Imbrian-era impactors had a different size distribution from the older ones, with the Imbrian impactor distribution being significantly richer in small impactors than that of older lunar impactors or current main-belt asteroids.

Kamil Crater (Egypt): Ground truth for small-scale meteorite impacts on Earth

Kamil Crater (Egypt): Ground truth for small-scale meteorite impacts on Earth

Using the youngest asteroid clusters to constrain the space weathering and gardening rate on S-complex asteroids

We have extended our earlier work on space weathering of the youngest S-complex asteroid families to include results from asteroid clusters with ages <10 6 years and to newly identified asteroid pairs with ages <5 × 10 5 years. We have identified three S-complex asteroid clusters amongst the set of clusters with ages in the range 10 5–6 years—(1270) Datura, (21509) Lucascavin and (16598) 1992 YC2. The average color of the objects in these clusters agrees with the color predicted by the space weathering model of Willman et al. (Willman, M., Jedicke, R., Nesvorný, D., Moskovitz, N., Ivezić, Z., Fevig, R. [2008]. Icarus 195, 663–673). SDSS five-filter photometry of the members of the very young asteroid pairs with ages <10 5 years was used to determine their taxonomic classification. Their types are consistent with the background population near each object. The average color of the S-complex pairs is PC 1 = 0.49 ± 0.03, over 5 σ redder than predicted by Willman et al. (Willman, M., Jedicke, R., Nesvorný, D., Moskovitz, N., Ivezić, Z., Fevig, R. [2008]. Icarus 195, 663–673). This may indicate that the most likely pair formation mechanism is a gentle separation due to YORP spin-up leaving much of the aged and reddened surface undisturbed. If this is the case then our color measurement allows us to set an upper limit of ∼64% on the amount of surface disturbed in the separation process. Using pre-existing color data and our new results for the youngest S-complex asteroid clusters we have extended our space weather model to explicitly include the effects of regolith gardening and fit separate weathering and gardening characteristic time scales of τ w = 960 ± 160 Myr and τ g = 2000 ± 290 Myr respectively. The first principal component color for fresh S-complex material is PC 1 = 0.37 ± 0.01 while the maximum amount of local reddening is Δ PC 1 = 0.33 ± 0.06. Our first-ever determination of the gardening time is in stark contrast to our calculated gardening time of τ g ∼ 270 Myr based on main belt impact rates and reasonable assumptions about crater and ejecta blanket sizes. A possible resolution for the discrepancy is through a ‘honeycomb’ mechanism in which the surface regolith structure absorbs small impactors without producing significant ejecta. This mechanism could also account for the paucity of small craters on (433) Eros.

Probable swirls detected as photometric anomalies in Oceanus Procellarum

Images of the lunar nearside obtained by telescopes of Maidanak Observatory (Uzbekistan) and Simeiz Observatory (Crimea, Ukraine) equipped with Canon CMOS cameras and Sony CCD LineScan camera were used to study photometric properties of the lunar nearside in several spectral bands. A wide range of lunar phase angles was covered, and the method of phase ratios to assess the steepness of the phase function at different phase angles is applied. We found several areas with photometric anomalies in the south-west portion of the lunar disk that we refer to as Oceanus Procellarum anomalies. The areas being unique on the lunar nearside do not obey the inverse correlation between albedo and phase-curve slope, demonstrating high phase-curve slopes at intermediate albedo. Low-Sun images acquired with Lunar Orbiter IV and Apollo-16 cameras do not reveal anomalous topography of the regions, at least for scales larger than several tens of meters. The areas also do not have any thermal inertia, radar (70 and 3.8 cm), magnetic, or chemical/mineral peculiarities. On the other hand they exhibit a polarimetric signature that we interpret to be due to the presence of a porous regolith upper layer consisting of dust particles. The anomalies may be interpreted as regions of very fresh shallow regolith disturbances caused by impacts of meteoroid swarms consisting of rather small impactors. This origin is similar to one of the hypotheses for the origin of lunar swirls like the Reiner-γ formation. The photometric difference between the shallow and pervasive (Reiner-γ class) swirls is that the latter appear to have a significant amount of immature soils in the upper surface layers.

Impact cratering records of the mid-sized, icy saturnian satellites

Resolution of Voyager 1 and 2 images of the mid-sized, icy saturnian satellites was generally not much better than 1 km per line pair, except for a few, isolated higher resolution images. Therefore, analyses of impact crater distributions were generally limited to diameters ( D) of tens of kilometers. Even with the limitation, however, these analyses demonstrated that studying impact crater distributions could expand understanding of the geology of the saturnian satellites and impact cratering in the outer Solar System. Thus to gain further insight into Saturn’s mid-sized satellites and impact cratering in the outer Solar System, we have compiled cratering records of these satellites using higher resolution Cassini ISS images. Images from Cassini of the satellites range in resolution from tens m/pixel to hundreds m/pixel. These high-resolution images provide a look at the impact cratering records of these satellites never seen before, expanding the observable craters down to diameters of hundreds of meters. The diameters and locations of all observable craters are recorded for regions of Mimas, Tethys, Dione, Rhea, Iapetus, and Phoebe. These impact crater data are then analyzed and compared using cumulative, differential and relative ( R) size-frequency distributions. Results indicate that the heavily cratered terrains on Rhea and Iapetus have similar distributions implying one common impactor population bombarded these two satellites. The distributions for Mimas and Dione, however, are different from Rhea and Iapetus, but are similar to one another, possibly implying another impactor population common to those two satellites. The difference between these two populations is a relative increase of craters with diameters between 10 and 30 km and a relative deficiency of craters with diameters between 30 and 80 km for Mimas and Dione compared with Rhea and Iapetus. This may support the result from Voyager images of two distinct impactor populations. One population was suggested to have a greater number of large impactors, most likely heliocentric comets (Saturn Population I in the Voyager literature), and the other a relative deficiency of large impactors and a greater number of small impactors, most likely planetocentric debris (Saturn Population II). Meanwhile, Tethys’ impact crater size-frequency distribution, which has some similarity to the distributions of Mimas, Dione, Rhea, and Iapetus, may be transitional between the two populations. Furthermore, when the impact crater distributions from these older cratered terrains are compared to younger ones like Dione’s smooth plains, the distributions have some similarities and differences. Therefore, it is uncertain whether the size-frequency distribution of the impactor population(s) changed over time. Finally, we find that Phoebe has a unique impact crater distribution. Phoebe appears to be lacking craters in a narrow diameter range around 1 km. The explanation for this confined “dip” at D = 1 km is not yet clear, but may have something to do with the interaction of Saturn’s irregular satellites or the capture of Phoebe.

The Yarkovsky effect is not responsible for small crater depletion on Eros and Itokawa

Abstract The near-Earth Asteroids Eros and Itokawa show a pronounced lack of small (≲100 m) craters, the vast majority of which were formed during their time in the main belt, and this has been cited as possible evidence that small (≲10 m) impactors are efficiently removed from the main belt by the Yarkovsky effect. Using well-tested models for the evolution of the main-belt size distribution and the evolution of crater populations on asteroid surfaces, I show that a pronounced lack of small impactors would require size-dependent removal far stronger than can result from the Yarkovsky effect (or any other known process). Furthermore, such strong removal would lead to wavelike perturbations in the main-belt and near-Earth asteroid size distributions that are inconsistent with their observed size distributions, as well as the cratering records on asteroid surfaces. A more likely explanation is that processes on asteroid surfaces, such as seismic shaking, are responsible for erasing small craters after they form.

Impact penetration of Europa's ice crust as a mechanism for formation of chaos terrain

Abstract— Ice thickness estimates and impactor dynamics indicate that some impacts must breach Europa's ice crust; and outcomes of impact experiments using ice‐over‐water targets range from simple craters to chaos‐like destroyed zones, depending on impact energy and ice competence. First‐order impacts‐into thick ice or at low impact energy‐produce craters. Second‐order impacts punch through the ice, making holes that resemble raft‐free chaos areas. Third‐order impacts‐into thinnest ice or at highest energy‐produce large irregular raft‐filled zones similar to platy chaos. Other evidence for an impact origin for chaos areas comes from the size‐frequency distribution of chaos+craters on Europa, which matches the impact production functions of Ganymede and Callisto; and from small craters around the large chaos area Thera Macula, which decrease in average size and density per unit area as a function of distance from Thera's center. There are no tiny chaos areas and no craters &gt;50 km diameter. This suggests that small impactors never penetrate, whereas large ones (ÜberPenetrators: &gt;2.5 km diameter at average impact velocity) always do. Existence of both craters and chaos areas in the size range 2–40 km diameter points to spatial/temporal variation in crust thickness. But in this size range, craters are progressively outnumbered by chaos areas at larger diameters, suggesting that probability of penetration increases with increasing scale of impact. If chaos areas do represent impact sites, then Europa's surface is older than previously thought. The recalculated resurfacing age is 480 (‐302/+960) Ma: greater than prior estimates, but still very young by solar system standards.