The missing large impact craters on Ceres

S Marchi; A I Ermakov; C A Raymond; R R Fu; D P O'Brien; M T Bland; E Ammannito; M C De Sanctis; T Bowling; P Schenk; J E C Scully; D L Buczkowski; D A Williams; H Hiesinger; C T Russell

doi:10.1038/ncomms12257

The missing large impact craters on Ceres

Nat Commun. 2016 Jul 26:7:12257. doi: 10.1038/ncomms12257.

Authors

S Marchi¹, A I Ermakov², C A Raymond³, R R Fu⁴, D P O'Brien⁵, M T Bland⁶, E Ammannito⁷, M C De Sanctis⁸, T Bowling⁹, P Schenk, J E C Scully³, D L Buczkowski¹⁰, D A Williams¹¹, H Hiesinger¹², C T Russell⁷

Affiliations

¹ Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado 80305, USA.
² Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
³ Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91109, USA.
⁴ Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, New York, New York 10968, USA.
⁵ Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, Arizona 85719, USA.
⁶ USGS Astrogeology Science Center, Flagstaff, Arizona 86001, USA.
⁷ Department of Earth and Space Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.
⁸ Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali, INAF, Roma 00133, Italy.
⁹ Department of Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA.
¹⁰ John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland 20723, USA.
¹¹ School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287, USA.
¹² Institut für Planetologie, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität, Münster 48149, Germany.

Abstract

Asteroids provide fundamental clues to the formation and evolution of planetesimals. Collisional models based on the depletion of the primordial main belt of asteroids predict 10-15 craters >400 km should have formed on Ceres, the largest object between Mars and Jupiter, over the last 4.55 Gyr. Likewise, an extrapolation from the asteroid Vesta would require at least 6-7 such basins. However, Ceres' surface appears devoid of impact craters >∼280 km. Here, we show a significant depletion of cerean craters down to 100-150 km in diameter. The overall scarcity of recognizable large craters is incompatible with collisional models, even in the case of a late implantation of Ceres in the main belt, a possibility raised by the presence of ammoniated phyllosilicates. Our results indicate that a significant population of large craters has been obliterated, implying that long-wavelength topography viscously relaxed or that Ceres experienced protracted widespread resurfacing.