Successive formation of impact craters - Nasa Dawm Mission Image of the Day 16 Feb 2012

This Dawn FC (framing camera) image shows two overlapping impact craters. The large crater is roughly 20 kilometers (12 miles) in diameter and the smaller crater is roughly 6 kilometers (4 miles) in diameter. The rims of the craters are both reasonably fresh but the larger crater must be older because the smaller crater cuts across the larger crater’s rim. As the smaller crater formed it destroyed a part of the rim of the pre-existing, larger crater. The larger crater’s interior is more densely cratered than the smaller crater, which also suggests that is it older. In the bottom of the image there is some material slumping from rim of the larger crater towards its center.

This image is located in Vesta’s Urbinia quadrangle and the center of the image is 58.0 degrees south latitude, 284.0 degrees east longitude. NASA’s Dawn spacecraft obtained this image with its framing camera on Dec. 18, 2011. This image was taken through the camera’s clear filter. The distance to the surface of Vesta is 260 kilometers (162 miles) and the image has a resolution of about 22 meters (82 feet) per pixel. This image was acquired during the LAMO (low-altitude mapping orbit) phase of the mission.

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Image Credit: NASA/ JPL-Caltech/ UCLA/ MPS/ DLR/ IDA