Impact cratering is the process by which hypervelocity collisions of extraterrestrial bodies (e.g., asteroids, comets, meteoroids) with a planetary surface excavate material and form characteristic circular depressions. It involves three main stages: contact and compression, where shock waves propagate and generate extreme pressures and temperatures; excavation, during which target material is displaced outward and upward, forming a transient cavity and ejecta; and modification, where gravitational collapse and rock rheology reshape the transient cavity into a final crater morphology. Impact cratering is a fundamental geologic process that influences crustal structure, surface evolution, and volatile redistribution on solid bodies throughout the Solar System.
The asteroid that extinguished the dinosaurs is estimated to have been about 10 kilometers across. That's about as wide as Brooklyn. Such a massive impactor is predicted to hit Earth rarely, once every 100 million to 500 ...
Planetary Sciences
Dec 9, 2024
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The South Pole-Aitken basin is the moon's oldest and largest visible crater—a massive geological wound 4 billion years old that preserves secrets about the moon's early history, much like a lunar time capsule.
Planetary Sciences
Dec 6, 2024
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Billions of years ago, a giant asteroid struck the moon with so much energy that it melted rock until it was super-heated and white-hot, or what scientists call impact melt. This eventually cooled and hardened, creating a ...
Planetary Sciences
Nov 18, 2024
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An asteroid struck Mars 11 million years ago and sent pieces of the red planet hurtling through space. One of these chunks of Mars eventually crashed into the Earth somewhere near Purdue University and is one of the few meteorites ...
Planetary Sciences
Nov 13, 2024
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A trio of geologists and environmental scientists from Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the University of Minnesota has found evidence suggesting that the Haasttse-baad Tessera formation ...
Billions of years ago, long before anything resembling life as we know it existed, meteorites frequently pummeled the planet. One such space rock crashed down about 3.26 billion years ago, and even today, it's revealing secrets ...
Astrobiology
Oct 21, 2024
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Scientists believe they could have pinpointed the age of the largest and oldest impact basin on the moon to more than 4.32 billion years ago.
Astronomy
Oct 16, 2024
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Like Earth, Mars was formed about 4.5 billion years ago, but its early surface was very different than today's. Mars' surface then had high rates of meteorite and asteroid impacts from the period known as the Late Heavy Bombardment. ...
In 2009, NASA intentionally crashed a spacecraft into the moon and used a small trailing spacecraft to observe the results: The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) was designed to search for frozen lunar ...
Planetary Sciences
Oct 9, 2024
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60
The European Space Agency's Hera spacecraft is on its way to do follow-up observations of Dimorphos, two years after an earlier probe knocked the mini-asteroid into a different orbital path around a bigger space rock.
Space Exploration
Oct 8, 2024
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