Rosetta flyby of Asteroid Steins, 5th September 2008 |
Rosetta flyby of Asteroid Steins, 5th September 2008 |
Jun 19 2008, 06:53 AM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 571 Joined: 20-April 05 From: Silesia Member No.: 299 |
Only 78 days to Stein encounter ! I can't believe I forgot about this event.
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Sep 7 2008, 06:56 PM
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Senior Member Group: Moderator Posts: 3242 Joined: 11-February 04 From: Tucson, AZ Member No.: 23 |
Very good point, Phil. If these are impact craters, that would be most likely explanation. These can't be secondary impacts, Steins has too little gravity to pull ejected material back in. Any material from that north polar impact crater would be long gone, except very slow moving ejecta...and they wouldn't form craters, those would show up as boulders on the surface (resolution too low to resolve these). As others have explained effectively, these likely aren't a crater chain caused by a broken-up impactor, Steins is too small, and rotates too slowly. And it would certainly NOT break up an in-coming body, Steins is not Jupiter. I'm willing to bet that Steins just about fills up its Roche lobe.
So you are back to either a pit chain, a la Phobos, or just a coincidental arrangement of craters. -------------------- &@^^!% Jim! I'm a geologist, not a physicist!
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