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Full-Text Articles in Instrumentation
The Effect Of Viscosity On Impact Cratering And Possible Application To The Icy Satellites Of Saturn And Jupiter, Jonathan H. Fink, Donald Gault, Ronald Greeley
The Effect Of Viscosity On Impact Cratering And Possible Application To The Icy Satellites Of Saturn And Jupiter, Jonathan H. Fink, Donald Gault, Ronald Greeley
Geology Faculty Publications and Presentations
Impact experiments in Newtonian fluids with a range of viscosities of 10-3 to 60 Pa s demonstrate that transient prater volume and shape (depth-to-diameter: ratio) depend on target viscosity as well as on gravity. Volume is reduced, and depth-to-diameter ratio is increased for cratering events in which viscosity plays a dominant role. In addition to being affected by target kinematic viscosity, viscous scaling is most strongly influenced by projectile diameter, less strongly by projectile velocity, and least strongly by gravity. In a Planetary context, viscols effects can occur for craters formed by small or slow moving impacting bodies, low …