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Survival of the impactor during hypervelocity collisions – I. An analogue for low porosity targets

Avdellidou, Chrysoula, Price, M. C., Delbo, M., Ioannidis, P., Cole, M. J. (2015) Survival of the impactor during hypervelocity collisions – I. An analogue for low porosity targets. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 456 (3). pp. 2957-2965. ISSN 0035-8711. (doi:10.1093/mnras/stv2844) (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:60021)

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.
Official URL:
http://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stv2844

Abstract

Recent observations of asteroidal surfaces indicate the presence of materials that do not match the bulk lithology of the body. A possible explanation for the presence of these exogenous materials is that they are products of interasteroid impacts in the Main Belt, and thus interest has increased in understanding the fate of the projectile during hypervelocity impacts. In order to gain insight into the fate of impactor, we have carried out a laboratory programme, covering the velocity range of 0.38–3.50 km s?1, devoted to measuring the survivability, fragmentation and final state of the impactor. Forsterite olivine and synthetic basalt projectiles were fired on to low porosity (<10 per cent) pure water-ice targets using the University of Kent's Light Gas Gun (LGG). We developed a novel method to identify impactor fragments which were found in ejecta and implanted into the target. We applied astronomical photometry techniques, using the source extractor software, to automatically measure the dimensions of thousands of fragments. This procedure enabled us to estimate the implanted mass on the target body, which was found to be a few per cent of the initial mass of the impactor. We calculated an order of magnitude difference in the energy density of catastrophic disruption, Q*, between peridot and basalt projectiles. However, we found very similar behaviour of the size frequency distributions for the hypervelocity shots (>1 km s?1). After each shot, we examined the largest peridot fragments with Raman spectroscopy and no melt or alteration in the final state of the projectile was observed.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1093/mnras/stv2844
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Natural Sciences > Physics and Astronomy
Depositing User: Mark Price
Date Deposited: 23 Jan 2017 11:59 UTC
Last Modified: 17 Aug 2022 11:01 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/60021 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

Avdellidou, Chrysoula.

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Price, M. C..

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Cole, M. J..

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