Craters on asteroids: Reconciling diverse impact records with a common impacting population

• Published in: Icarus (New York, N.Y. 1962) Vol. 183; no. 1; pp. 79 - 92
• Main Authors: O'Brien, David P., Greenberg, Richard, Richardson, James E.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: San Diego, CA Elsevier Inc 01.07.2006; Elsevier
• Subjects: Asteroids; Astronomy; Collisional physics; Cratering; Earth, ocean, space; Exact sciences and technology; Solar system; Cratering; Asteroids; Collisional physics; Dynamical evolution; Digital simulation; Models; Modelling; Solar system; Asteroid belt
• ISSN: 0019-1035; 1090-2643
• DOI: 10.1016/j.icarus.2006.02.008

O'Brien and Greenberg [O'Brien, D.P., Greenberg, R., 2005. Icarus 178, 179–212] developed a self-consistent numerical model of the collisional and dynamical evolution of the main-belt and NEA populations that was tested against a diverse range of observational and theoretical constraints. In this paper, we use those results to update the asteroid cratering model of Greenberg et al. [Greenberg, R., Nolan, M.C., Bottke, W.F., Kolvoord, R.A., Veverka, J., 1994. Icarus 107, 84–97; Greenberg, R., Bottke, W.F., Nolan, M., Geissler, P., Petit, J., Durda, D.D., Asphaug, E., Head, J., 1996. Icarus 120, 106–118], and show that the main-belt asteroid population from the O'Brien and Greenberg collisional/dynamical evolution modeling is consistent with the crater records on Gaspra, Ida, Mathilde, and Eros, the four asteroids that have been observed by spacecraft.