Hypervelocity Impacts onto Spherical Ice Targets with a Liquid Core

There has always been interest in icy bodies in the solar system. During the last 10 years there has been focus on icy moons such as Europa and the possible liquid layer underneath its ice shell. This thesis is a starting point for research into hypervelocity impacts impacting a spherical ice shell with a liquid core. It also compares the results to other hypervelocity impacts onto ice, for example Leliwa-Kopystynski (2005) et al. and Burchell et al. (1997).

The research in this thesis finds the catastrophic energy density of ice-water core spheres. The conclusion of the data shows the catastrophic energy density is between 14.8±1.6 and 17.6±2.3 J kg?1, whereas solid ice spheres have a catastrophic energy density of 18.0±0.7 J kg?1.

The thesis also presents data relating to the impact events, this includes: crater depth, spall diameter, pit diameter, volume of the crater and variation in fragmentation. All these parameters of the impacts were analysed and compared with other data from similar studies that carried out experiment on solid spheres.

Other interesting qualitative data was gathered such as slow-motion videos of the impacts. The videos were divided into still images and then analysed. This couldn't be compared to other data as there are no similar videos in the scientific literature.