{"id":52091,"date":"2016-10-28T12:54:37","date_gmt":"2016-10-28T22:54:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=52091"},"modified":"2020-05-08T12:56:56","modified_gmt":"2020-05-08T22:56:56","slug":"retracing-the-origins-of-a-massive-multi-ring-crater","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2016\/10\/28\/retracing-the-origins-of-a-massive-multi-ring-crater\/","title":{"rendered":"Retracing the origins of a massive, multi-ring crater"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 3<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>
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Free-air gravitational anomalies (red = mass excess; blue = mass deficit) and a shaded topographic relief of the Moon’s Orientale impact basin. This gravitational field model, based on measurements acquired from the NASA<\/abbr> GRAIL<\/abbr> mission, shows the detailed structure of the central basin depression that is filled with dense mare basalts, as well as the rings that formed due to gravitational collapse of the initial crater cavity shortly after the impact. (credit: Ernest Wright\/NASA<\/abbr>\/GSFC Scientific Visualization Studio)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An international team of scientists, led by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology<\/a> (MIT), have reconstructed the extreme collision that created one of the moon’s largest craters, 3.8 billion years ago. Jeffrey Taylor<\/a>, a professor in the University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology<\/a>, was among the scientists who retraced the moon’s dramatic response in the first hours following the massive impact, and identified the processes by which large, multi-ring basins can form in the aftermath of such events. <\/p>\n

The findings, published in two papers in the journal Science<\/em><\/a>, may shed light on how giant impacts shaped the evolution of the moon, and even life on Earth, shortly after the planets formed.<\/p>\n