Physics Commons^™

The Effects Of Water Ice Sublimation On Slope Failures Of Icy Regolith, Christopher Cox, Madison Weinberg, Trisha Joseph

The Pegasus Review: UCF Undergraduate Research Journal

The frost line in a planetary system represents the distance from the central star inside of which conditions are too warm for ice to form, while beyond this line it will be stable. When an icy object passes that line heading toward the Sun it will begin to sublimate and outgas, potentially causing mass loss and surface changes. One example is surface failures, which can lead to material being removed from the object. Evidence of this has been seen on cometary surfaces, where surfaces often show structures that appear to have suffered various mechanical failures like cracking and landslides. By …