Cometary collisions and the dark material on Iapetus

Details Cometary collisions and the dark material on Iapetus Cometary collisions and the dark material on Iapetus

Mar 1989

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1989em%26p...44..251t&link_type=abstract

Earth, Moon, and Planets (ISSN 0167-9295), vol. 44, March 1989, p. 251-264.

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

2

Collisions, Comets, Dark Matter, Iapetus, Satellite Surfaces, Albedo, Astronomical Models, Astronomical Photometry, Hypervelocity Impact, Luminosity, Planetary Evolution

Scientific paper

It is hypothesized that in the last 10 to the 6th to 10 to the 8th yrs the leading side of Iapetus suffered a high-velocity collision with a cometary body of mass 10 to the 13th to 10 to the 15th kg and traveling at a speed of 20 km/s. About 5-16 percent of the excavated material was ejected into space, where the vaporized ices dissipated while the dark carbonaceous/silicate material was reaccreted on the leading side. The collision, although not sufficient to break Iapetus' tidal lock, resulted in a period of oscillation of about 5 yr. Until tidal friction reasserted a lock, the oscillation gave rise to the longitude effect, i.e., the observed fact that the dark material covers more than 220 of longitude but only 110 of latitude.

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