Large impact basins on the near side of the Moon lack the annulus of thickened crust that far-side basins have. The difference can be linked to the thermal structure of the lunar crust.
craters
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Impact Structure Hidden Under Arctic Ice Dates to the Paleocene
Greenland’s Hiawatha impact structure, more than 30 kilometers in diameter, is much older than previously thought, new results suggest.
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A Giant Impact Triggered Earthquakes for Thousands of Years
When an asteroid struck South Africa during the Precambrian, earthquakes rocked the region for millennia as Earth’s crust reequilibrated, new research reveals.
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Ejecta Discovered Near Site of Ancient Meteorite Impact
South Africa’s Vredefort impact structure is the largest on the planet, and researchers have now discovered the first proximal ejecta possibly deriving from the cataclysmic impact.
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Glassy Nodules Pinpoint a Meteorite Impact
Researchers working in Chile’s Atacama Desert have collected thousands of “atacamaites” that suggest a meteorite struck the region roughly 8 million years ago.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Moon’s Largest Crater Holds Clues About Early Lunar Mantle
An ancient impact splashed evidence of the Moon’s early mantle makeup onto its surface. Now researchers are piecing together models, maps, and samples to bring these mysteries to light.
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Ancient Eruption May Change Our Understanding of Modern Volcanoes
Bubbles trapped in magma from a 1,000-year-old event reveal how scoria cones might erupt and what impact they may have on the landscape and atmosphere.
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An Asteroid “Double Disaster” Struck Germany in the Miocene
By analyzing sediments jostled by ground shaking, researchers have shown that two impact craters near Stuttgart were created by independent asteroid impacts rather than a binary asteroid strike.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Predicting the Unique Shape of Craters on Asteroid (16) Psyche
Models link the variety of crater shapes expected on (16) Psyche with the interior structure of this unique asteroid, in preparation for the arrival of the Psyche probe in 2026.
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Moon May Hold Billions of Tons of Subterranean Ice at Its Poles
By modeling over 4 billion years of the Moon’s impact history, scientists estimate that the lunar poles may harbor billions of metric tons of subsurface ice.