ON THE ORIGIN OF THE LARGE LUNAR CRATERS AND CIRCULAR MARIA,

Abstract

The meteoritic hypothesis of the formation of the lunar relief is based on extrapolation of empirical relationships established for industrial and military explosion craters, and also on terrestrial meteorite craters. Recent work on the modeling of major ejective explosions has shown that such extrapolations entail serious errors. A characteristic dimension of a crater is the radius, which is determined by the energy of the explosion, by the depth to the explosion center, by the physico-mechanical properties of the medium, and by the acceleration of gravity. As regards the Moon, the crater radii and the acceleration of gravity are known; also, to some degree of precision, the density and strength of the rocks. The depth of the explosion-center (the limiting depth of the meteorite penetration) can be rigorously enough calculated. (Author)

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 01, 1969
Accession Number
AD0689803

Entities

People

  • G. S. Shteinberg

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Explosions
  • Extrapolation
  • Mechanical Properties
  • Meteorites
  • Physical Properties
  • Precision

Fields of Study

  • Geology

Readers

  • Explosive Engineering.
  • Geotechnical Engineering.
  • Space Exploration and Orbital Mechanics.

Technology Areas

  • Space
  • Space - Orbital Debris