Planetary Crater Consortium

Crater Fact Friday ☄️DID YOU KNOW☄️ that Mars' moon Phobos has a massive crater? Stickney is 9 km across and is named after Chloe Angeline Stickney Hall, an American mathematician and suffragist whose calculations were critical to the discovery of the martian moons in 1877. We'll learn more with MMX!

You know what day it is!!!

Crater Fact Saturday ☄️DID YOU KNOW☄️ that Pluto's heart, Sputnik Planitia, is actually a massive impact basin larger than the state of Alaska? Sputnik Planitia likely formed early in Pluto's history, and its location near the equator may reflect the presence of a long-lived subsurface ocean.

Crater Fact Saturday ☄️DID YOU KNOW☄️ One of Earth's oldest known impact craters is the Sudbury Basin. Formed 1.85 billion years ago by a ~10km object. Sudbury is used as an analog site to understand lunar craters and is a location where many Apollo and Artemis astronauts conduct field trainings.

Crater Fact Friday ☄️ DID YOU KNOW ☄️ that Meteor Crater in Arizona is one of the best-preserved impact craters on Earth? During the 1960s and 1970s, NASA astronauts trained in the crater to prepare for the Apollo missions to the Moon, and ongoing field training for astronauts continues to this day.

Crater Fact Friday ☄️DID YOU KNOW☄️ that Saturn's moon Mimas looks like the Death Star? The iconic crater that gives it this appearance is Herschel, and its sharp central peak and steep walls may tell us about the age of a potential ocean deep beneath the surface!

Crater Fact Friday ☄️ DID YOU KNOW ☄️ that the Moon has a new crater? Named after lunar scientist Tom McGetchin, this 222-m-diameter crater formed sometimes between April 11 and May 22, 2024, and is an incredibly informative tool to understand the local and regional lunar geologic history.

Crater Fact Friday ☄️ DID YOU KNOW ☄️ The South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin is one of the largest (~2,500 km) and oldest (4.3 billion yrs) impact basins in the solar system? SPA is important because this basin and its ejecta can help us better understand the early solar system and its violent history.

Crater Fact Friday ☄️DID YOU KNOW☄️ that the largest craters sometimes form multi-ring basins? These unusual impact structures form on both rocky and icy bodies, and are though to originate from variations in subsurface structure. Callisto's basin Valhalla is ~1000 km across!

Crater Fact Friday ☄️DID YOU KNOW☄️ recent impacts on Mars have excavated and exposed subsurface ice? These impacts can help scientists better understand the climate on Mars and can be used to improve maps of subsurface ice to be used a potential resource for human exploration.

Crater Fact Friday ☄️ DID YOU KNOW ☄️ Germany is home to Ries crater, a 24 km-wide crater that formed ~15 million years ago? Ries crater is one of the most well preserved craters on Earth, with the crater floor and portions of the ejecta blanket still visible for scientists to study!

Crater Fact Friday ☄️ DID YOU KNOW ☄️ some craters, called polygonal craters, form with straight sides and edges, as opposed to being circular or elliptical? The presence of polygonal craters indicates preexisting fractures or tectonics, providing geologists with insight into the subsurface!

Crater Fact Friday ☄️DID YOU KNOW☄️ Venus lacks craters <~2km, due to its extremely dense atmosphere? Large craters that do form exhibit ejecta with sinuous flows, similar to lava flows, because surface rocks are easily melted by the high pressures and temperatures reached during the impact.

Crater Fact Friday ☄️DID YOU KNOW☄️ about peak-ring basins? These craters typically form at sizes larger than complex craters, and have an interior ring of peaks surrounding the crater's center (hence the name). They can be found on Mercury, Venus, the Moon, Earth, and Mars!

Crater Fact Friday☄️DID YOU KNOW☄️Researchers recently discovered a 390 million year old, 25km wide crater, named Uhackatik, in Quebec's Côte-Nord region? Uhackatik was originally found via GoogleMaps, and researchers identified impact melt rocks and shock features in the region, confirming its origin

Crater Fact Friday ☄️DID YOU KNOW☄️ Layered ejecta craters are hypothesized to form in the presence of subsurface ice, where volatiles are fluidized upon impact. This means these craters can be used as a way to identify subsurface volatiles and resources on other planets!

Today is day one of the Planetary Crater Consortium's annual meeting! We're very excited to welcome researchers at all stages of their careers, from undergraduates to emeritus professors, to the USGS Science Campus in Flagstaff for 2.5 days of crater discussions ☄️

Crater Fact Friday ☄️DID YOU KNOW☄️ that craters are so circular because the impacts happen at such high speeds that they behave like point-source explosions? This is why the Sedan crater, formed by a nuclear explosion at the Nevada test site, looks so similar to regular impact craters! Happy 4th 🇺🇸

Crater Fact Friday ☄️ The Yarrabubba impact structure in Western Australia is one of Earth's oldest preserved craters (2.2 Gya!). It is likely the impact struck an ice sheet, releasing water vapor into the atmosphere. This could have contributed to rapid climate change and the end of Snowball Earth!

One more day to submit your abstract for this year's Planetary Crater Consortium meeting in Flagstaff, AZ! Meeting is July 15-17, abstracts are due June 17 (tomorrow). Submit here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Come join us in Flagstaff!

Hey you! Do you like impacts craters? Well, great news. Just over a month left to submit an abstract to our annual meeting! Come chat about all things craters! docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Upcoming PCC Meeting July 15-17 at the USGS-Flagstaff! Abstract Submission (deadline June 17): forms.gle/APaNS8G7ycJx... Registration: forms.gle/RpGWUMaK6qdk... We welcome submission for all things craters Observational work, planetary remote sensing, modeling, field work, lab experiments, etc.!

Upcoming PCC Meeting July 15-17 at the USGS-Flagstaff! Abstract Submission (deadline June 17): forms.gle/APaNS8G7ycJx... Registration: forms.gle/RpGWUMaK6qdk... We welcome submission for all things craters Observational work, planetary remote sensing, modeling, field work, lab experiments, etc.!

Did you know impact craters can provide us a window into the subsurface? Occator Crater on Ceres contains bright material, remnants of a salty brine, that migrated from the deep subsurface reservoir to the surface. The size and energy of the Occator impact provided a pathway for this migration!

CRATERS Images from Landsat science.nasa.gov/mission/land...

Happy Earth Day! The Earth has hundreds of confirmed impact craters, which provide a key reference point for impact cratering research. Field and laboratory studies of terrestrial impact craters are a key part of how we learn about craters, including how they form and decay through time.

Wooo big basins!

Crater Fact Friday: there's lots of unusual types of craters across the Solar System! One of our favorite types is pedestal craters, which have ejecta blankets that sit above the surrounding terrain, forming a raised platform (like a pedestal). Many of these can be found on Mars.

Whose excited for the Artemis II launch?! 🚀

Need to catch up on #ArtemisII science ahead of today's launch attempt to the MOON? See our explainer at @nature.com 🧪🔭 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

What a beautiful looking impact basin on the top right! (Her name is Gertrude if you’re wondering!) This is the biggest impact crater of the Uranian satellites, measuring at ~325 km in diameter.

Crater Fact Friday ☄️DID YOU KNOW☄️ impact cratering is the most ubiquitous surface process in the solar system? We see impact craters on almost every solid surface body (with *maybe* the exception of Io!) Can you guess where these impact craters formed?

The Planetary Crater Consortium (PCC) was originally established in 1998 as the Mars Crater Consortium. In 2010 PCC was formed as we aimed to facilitate collaborations between planetary scientists interested in any aspect of impact craters on solar system bodies (planets🌏moons🌗 asteroids☄️ comets!)