Sesquinary catenae on the Martian satellite Phobos from reaccretion of escaping ejecta

M. Nayak () and E. Asphaug
Additional contact information
M. Nayak: Red Sky Research, LLC
E. Asphaug: University of California at Santa Cruz

Nature Communications, 2016, vol. 7, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract The Martian satellite Phobos is criss-crossed by linear grooves and crater chains whose origin is unexplained. Anomalous grooves are relatively young, and crosscut tidally predicted stress fields as Phobos spirals towards Mars. Here we report strong correspondence between these anomalous features and reaccretion patterns of sesquinary ejecta from impacts on Phobos. Escaping ejecta persistently imprint Phobos with linear, low-velocity crater chains (catenae) that match the geometry and morphology of prominent features that do not fit the tidal model. We prove that these cannot be older than Phobos’ current orbit inside Mars’ Roche limit. Distinctive reimpact patterns allow sesquinary craters to be traced back to their source, for the first time across any planetary body, creating a novel way to probe planetary surface characteristics. For example, we show that catena-producing craters likely formed in the gravity regime, providing constraints on the ejecta velocity field and knowledge of source crater material properties.

Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms12591 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:7:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms12591

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms12591

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().