Interior responses to impacts by different impactor types

Ruedas T, Breuer D

Abstract

We use scaling laws for impacts to estimate the differences in the effects on the interior of a planet that impactors with different parameters and properties have even if they produce impact craters with the same diameter at the surface. The long-term effects of such "isocrater" impacts on planetary evolution are then also studied with numerical models of mantle convection for different bodies, but especially for Mars. The results support the notion that the vast majority of large impacts was caused by asteroids rather than other bodies such as large comets.