Asteroids provide fundamental clues to the formation and evolution of planetesimals. Collisional models based on the depletion of the primordial main belt of asteroids predict 10–15 craters >400 km should have formed on Ceres, the largest object between Mars and Jupiter, over the last 4.55 Gyr. Likewise, an extrapolation from the asteroid Vesta would require at least 6–7 such basins. However, Ceres’ surface appears devoid of impact craters >∼280 km. Here, we show a significant depletion of cerean craters down to 100–150 km in diameter.
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- Marchi, S. (Author)
- Ermakov, A. I. (Author)
- Raymond, C. A. (Author)
- Fu, R. R. (Author)
- O'Brien, D. P. (Author)
- Bland, M. T. (Author)
- Ammannito, E. (Author)
- De Sanctis, M. C. (Author)
- Bowling, T. (Author)
- Schenk, P. (Author)
- Scully, J. E. C. (Author)
- Buczkowski, D. L. (Author)
- Williams, David (Contributor)
- Hiesinger, H. (Author)
- Russell, C. T. (Author)
- College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Contributor)
- 2016-07-26
- Digital object identifier: 10.1038/ncomms12257
- Identifier TypeInternational standard serial numberIdentifier Value2041-1723
- The final version of this article, as published in Nature Communications, can be viewed online at: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms12257, opens in a new window
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Marchi, S., Ermakov, A. I., Raymond, C. A., Fu, R. R., O’Brien, D. P., Bland, M. T., . . . Russell, C. T. (2016). The missing large impact craters on Ceres. Nature Communications, 7, 12257. doi:10.1038/ncomms12257