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International Conference on Geo-Informatics in Resource Management and Sustainable Ecosystem

2015, GRMSE 2015: Geo-Informatics in Resource Management and Sustainable Ecosystem pp 741–750Cite as

Spatial Pattern of Projectile Direction of Crater Rays on the Moon

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Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 569))

Abstract

Crater rays are among the most prominent lunar features that are radial or subradial to fresh impact craters. According to the latest more than 800 rayed impact craters with asymmetric ejecta in a latitude zone from 75°N to 75°S using Chang’E imageries, the spatial pattern of projectile direction of crater rays on the moon, namely the nearside-farside, leading side-trailing side and latitudinal variations, have been analyzed. The results suggest that: (1) the projectiles the rayed craters created mainly come from northeast direction while the number of projectiles coming from southwest direction is small; (2) in the nearside, projectiles from north direction can account for nearly 15 % of the whole projectiles. Yet in the farside, the number of projectiles makes up no more than 10 % of the total. On the other hand, the discrepancy is characterized by smaller frequency in the east direction on the trailing side while that is in higher frequency on the leading side direction; (3) with the latitude increases, the projectiles concentrate coming from one or two directions. The spatial variation suggests that the asteroid belt can well explain the dominant direction of projectiles concentrates in northeast direction and rayed craters on the Moon are formed mainly by near-Earth asteroids rather than comets with higher encounter velocities.

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Acknowledgements

The CE data are presented by the National Astronomical Observation and Chinese Academy of Sciences. This work is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41171332) and Self-innovative Projects of Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS (Grant No. 201001005). The authors also thank anonymous reviewers for constructive and insightful reviews of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China

    Jiao Wang, Chengdu Zhou, Weiming Cheng & Zengpo Zhou

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Jiao Wang

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  1. Jiao Wang
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  2. Chengdu Zhou
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  3. Weiming Cheng
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  4. Zengpo Zhou
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Correspondence to Chengdu Zhou .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Wuhan University , Wuhan, China

    Fuling Bian

  2. Eastern Michigan University , Ypsilanti, China

    Yichun Xie

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Wang, J., Zhou, C., Cheng, W., Zhou, Z. (2016). Spatial Pattern of Projectile Direction of Crater Rays on the Moon. In: Bian, F., Xie, Y. (eds) Geo-Informatics in Resource Management and Sustainable Ecosystem. GRMSE 2015 2015. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 569. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-49155-3_76

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-49155-3_76

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