Increased small impactor flux on the Moon as inferred from regolith thickness at the Chang’E-5 Region
Mingwei Zhang, Bojun Jia, Vincent R Eke, Wenzhe Fa · 2025
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Description
Mingwei Zhang and co-authors use soil depth on the Moon to count small impacts from the past. Their 2025 study focuses on the landing zone of a recent Chinese mission, the youngest dated plain of its kind. Small craters fade too fast to count directly, but the loose soil layer keeps a record of hits over time.
Fresh crater shapes point to a median soil depth of about 3.6 meters there. Models show that depth needs more small craters than past counts assumed, by a factor of about one and a half. The extra hits may trace to a breakup of space rocks about six hundred million years ago. Or steady drift of small rocks toward the Moon may have kept the rate high.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Mingwei Zhang, Bojun Jia, Vincent R Eke, Wenzhe Fa |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2025 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 56 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |