Planetary Science Seminar

Abstract: New, dated impacts discovered on Mars with before and after imaging provide direct observations of modern bombardment in the inner Solar System. They are the freshest examples of recent craters available anywhere outside the laboratory. Studies of these craters relate to issues with secondaries, help calibrate cratering chronology models, and shed light on their formation and modification processes. I will present our measurement of the current cratering production function at Mars; describe these craters' shapes and implications for target material properties; and show the results of four martian years of change monitoring, yielding estimates of lifetimes for the albedo features surrounding these new impacts.