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IS THE LARGE CRATER ON THE ASTEROID (2867) STEINS REALLY AN IMPACT CRATER?

Morris, A. J. W., Price, Mark C., Burchell, Mark J. (2013) IS THE LARGE CRATER ON THE ASTEROID (2867) STEINS REALLY AN IMPACT CRATER? Astrophysical Journal, 774 (1). L11. ISSN 0004-637X. (doi:10.1088/2041-8205/774/1/L11) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:36157)

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Official URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/2041-8205/774/1/L11

Abstract

The large crater on the asteroid (2867) Steins attracted much attention when it was first observed by the Rosetta spacecraft in 2008. Initially, it was widely thought to be unusually large compared to the size of the asteroid. It was quickly realized that this was not the case and there are other examples of similar (or larger) craters on small bodies in the same size range; however, it is still widely accepted that it is a crater arising from an impact onto the body which occurred after its formation. The asteroid (2867) Steins also has an equatorial bulge, usually considered to have arisen from redistribution of mass due to spin-up of the body caused by the YORP effect. Conversely, it is shown here that, based on catastrophic disruption experiments in laboratory impact studies, a similarly shaped body to the asteroid Steins can arise from the break-up of a parent in a catastrophic disruption event; this includes the presence of a large crater-like feature and equatorial bulge. This suggests that the large crater-like feature on Steins may not be a crater from a subsequent impact, but may have arisen directly from the fragmentation process of a larger, catastrophically disrupted parent.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1088/2041-8205/774/1/L11
Subjects: Q Science > QB Astronomy
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Natural Sciences > Physics and Astronomy
Depositing User: Mark Burchell
Date Deposited: 11 Nov 2013 15:27 UTC
Last Modified: 03 Sep 2021 14:00 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/36157 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

Price, Mark C..

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CReDIT Contributor Roles:

Burchell, Mark J..

Creator's ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2680-8943
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