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Planetary Crater Consortium

@planetarycraters.bsky.social

The PCC is a community organization of planetary scientists interested in impact cratering on solar system bodies (planets, dwarf planets, moons, asteroids, and/or comets), including observational, theoretical, experimental, and numerical modeling studies.

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Planetary Crater Consortium@planetarycraters.bsky.social · 5d ago

Crater Fact Friday ☄️DID YOU KNOW☄️ about peak-ring basins? These craters typically form at sizes larger than complex craters, and have an interior ring of peaks surrounding the crater's center (hence the name). They can be found on Mercury, Venus, the Moon, Earth, and Mars!

Raditladi, a relatively young peak-ring crater on Mercury. Raditladi, first imaged during MESSENGER's first Mercury flyby and named in April 2008, continues to be an intriguing region of study, with its well-preserved features, relatively young age, exterior impact melt ponds, hollows-covered peak ring, and concentric troughs on its floor.Barton, a peak-ring crater on Venus. Image via Magellan.Schrödinger, a peak-ring basin on the Moon. Mosaic of photos by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.The peak-ring basin Lowell, exhibiting frost deposits on its floor. Taken by the Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC).
Planetary Crater Consortium@planetarycraters.bsky.social · 2w ago

Crater Fact Friday☄️DID YOU KNOW☄️Researchers recently discovered a 390 million year old, 25km wide crater, named Uhackatik, in Quebec's Côte-Nord region? Uhackatik was originally found via GoogleMaps, and researchers identified impact melt rocks and shock features in the region, confirming its origin

A google maps image of a region in Quebec Canada. Seen in the center of the image is a large circular depression, which is the newly identified Uhackatik crater.
Planetary Crater Consortium@planetarycraters.bsky.social · 3w ago

Crater Fact Friday ☄️DID YOU KNOW☄️ Layered ejecta craters are hypothesized to form in the presence of subsurface ice, where volatiles are fluidized upon impact. This means these craters can be used as a way to identify subsurface volatiles and resources on other planets!

A beautiful layered ejecta crater on Mars with two distinct layers.
Planetary Crater Consortium@planetarycraters.bsky.social · 3w ago

Today is day one of the Planetary Crater Consortium's annual meeting! We're very excited to welcome researchers at all stages of their careers, from undergraduates to emeritus professors, to the USGS Science Campus in Flagstaff for 2.5 days of crater discussions ☄️

Planetary Crater Consortium@planetarycraters.bsky.social · 4w ago

Crater Fact Friday ☄️DID YOU KNOW☄️ Doublet craters form when two objects (such as a binary asteroid) impact a surface simultaneously? We use the frequency and size of observed doublets to estimate the population of binary asteroids, which is important for planetary defense!

Image of a doublet crater from the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC). Credit: NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems. Image shows two side by side craters with a straight rim separation and butterfly ejecta.
Planetary Crater Consortium@planetarycraters.bsky.social · last mo.

Crater Fact Friday ☄️DID YOU KNOW☄️ that craters are so circular because the impacts happen at such high speeds that they behave like point-source explosions? This is why the Sedan crater, formed by a nuclear explosion at the Nevada test site, looks so similar to regular impact craters! Happy 4th 🇺🇸

Meteor Crater, Arizona as seen from above. This image has a resolution of 2 meters per pixel, and illumination is from the right. Layers of exposed kaibab limestone and moenkopi and toroweap sandstone are visible just beneath the crater rim, as well as in the surrounding ejecta blanket, which has large blocks excavated by the impact. The visitor center and associated parking lot are on the north end of the crater. This image was taken by the NASA Earth ObservatoryCrater from the July 1962 "Sedan" nuclear test at the Nevada Test Site (also called the Nevada National Security Site) as part of Operation Plowshare. The 104 kiloton blast displaced 12 million tons of earth and created a crater 320 feet deep and 1,280 feet wide. (Look to the size of the roads in the bottom-right of the picture, and the observation deck at the lower-right edge of the crater, for a sense of scale). The roads are very small relative to the crater.
Planetary Crater Consortium@planetarycraters.bsky.social · last mo.

Crater Fact Friday ☄️ The Yarrabubba impact structure in Western Australia is one of Earth's oldest preserved craters (2.2 Gya!). It is likely the impact struck an ice sheet, releasing water vapor into the atmosphere. This could have contributed to rapid climate change and the end of Snowball Earth!

Google earth image showing an outline of the Yarrrabubba impact structure and a map of Australia indicating the location of the impact structure in Western Australia.
Planetary Crater Consortium@planetarycraters.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Did you know impact craters can provide us a window into the subsurface? Occator Crater on Ceres contains bright material, remnants of a salty brine, that migrated from the deep subsurface reservoir to the surface. The size and energy of the Occator impact provided a pathway for this migration!

Image of an impact crater on Ceres with several bright spots in the interior of the crater.
Planetary Crater Consortium@planetarycraters.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Happy Earth Day! The Earth has hundreds of confirmed impact craters, which provide a key reference point for impact cratering research. Field and laboratory studies of terrestrial impact craters are a key part of how we learn about craters, including how they form and decay through time.

Meteor Crater from the southeast; the uplift around the rim can be seen. USGS/D. Roddy.Popigai impact structure in northern Siberia, Russia. Satellite image of South Africa's Vredefort Crater.The Sudbury impact crater is the large, elliptical structure in this image (60 x 30 km).
Planetary Crater Consortium@planetarycraters.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Orientale, the multi-ring impact basin that's a focus of Artemis II, is unique as the youngest of the Moon's large impact basins! Orientale's multiple rings are thought to have formed from deformation of the lunar crust and upper mantle in response to impact, generating circumferential ring faults.

The Orientale basin is the youngest of the large lunar basins. The distinct outer ring is about 590 miles (950 km) from east-to-west.
Planetary Crater Consortium@planetarycraters.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Crater Fact Friday: there's lots of unusual types of craters across the Solar System! One of our favorite types is pedestal craters, which have ejecta blankets that sit above the surrounding terrain, forming a raised platform (like a pedestal). Many of these can be found on Mars.

Pedestal crater on Mars, as seen by HiRISE under HiWish program. Top layer has protected the lower material from being eroded. The location is Casius quadrangle.Another pedestal crater on Mars, as seen by HiRISE under HiWish program Location is Hellas quadrangle.Pedestal crater on Mars, as seen by HiRISE under HiWish program The ejecta is not symmetrical around crater because the asteroid came at a low angle out of the northeast, so there is an exclusion zone of no ejecta in that quadrant. The location is Casius quadrangle.Pedestal crater on Mars, as seen by HiRISE under HiWish program Scallops are forming at the bottom edge of the pedestal. Location is Casius quadrangle.
Planetary Crater Consortium@planetarycraters.bsky.social · 4mo ago

One of the major focuses of future Artemis missions is landing on the lunar south pole near permanently shadowed craters. These types of craters are unique, as their locations near the poles of the Moon mean that - as the name implies - some portion of their interior is always in darkness.

Erlanger is a very deep lunar impact crater that lies near the north pole of the Moon. Image taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Narrow Angle Camera.
Planetary Crater Consortium@planetarycraters.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Crater Fact Friday ☄️DID YOU KNOW☄️ impact cratering is the most ubiquitous surface process in the solar system? We see impact craters on almost every solid surface body (with *maybe* the exception of Io!) Can you guess where these impact craters formed?

A four panel image showing different impact craters on various solar system bodies
Planetary Crater Consortium@planetarycraters.bsky.social · 4mo ago

The Planetary Crater Consortium (PCC) was originally established in 1998 as the Mars Crater Consortium. In 2010 PCC was formed as we aimed to facilitate collaborations between planetary scientists interested in any aspect of impact craters on solar system bodies (planets🌏moons🌗 asteroids☄️ comets!)