Open AccessThe approximate ratios between the diameters of terrestrial impact craters and the causative incident asteroids
Author(s) -
Hughes David W.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
monthly notices of the royal astronomical society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.058
H-Index - 383
eISSN - 1365-2966
pISSN - 0035-8711
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-8711.2003.06157.x
Subject(s) - impact crater , asteroid , astrobiology , physics , kinetic energy , earth (classical element) , meteorite , near earth object , ejecta , lunar craters , geology , astronomy , quantum mechanics , supernova
When a large asteroid of diameter d hits the surface of the Earth, it produces a crater of diameter D . This paper uses the near‐Earth asteroid (NEA) size and miss‐distance statistics to calculate the rate at which asteroids hit the Earth. Comparison of this with the known rate at which craters have been produced on the Earth's surface indicates that E = 9.1 × 10 24 D 2.59 erg , where E is the kinetic energy of the incident NEA, and D is the diameter of the resulting crater, in km. So the ratio D / d varies from about 8 for the small 0.88‐km ‘Wolfe Creek type’ craters, up to about 16 for craters like Chicxulub, which has a diameter of about 200 km.