Sentences with phrase «impact crater called»

Parachutes will slow its descent through the atmosphere; air bags will cushion its fall onto the rock - strewn floor of a vast impact crater called Isidis Planitia.

Not exact matches

Furthermore, Schultz's work suggests fragments from these giants could account for a many of the impacts that occurred during a period called the Late Heavy Bombardment, which occurred from about 3.8 billion years ago to around 4 billion years, when scientists think most of the craters we see on the Moon and Mercury were formed.

Second Life: Just months after the craft dropped its payload to Earth in 2006, remotely fired its thrusters to change its course for a new mission, called Stardust - NExT, to photograph the crater created by Deep Impact.

Each round hole is where a meteorite impacted the surface of the moon, so craters are often called «impact craters.»

The giant crater at the centre of the image, called Herschel, was probably gouged out by an enormous asteroid impact.

One of the new craters, called Earhart, is about 200 kilometres across and is almost completely masked by a later impact and subsequent lava flooding.

Those results set the age boundary for the oldest terrains on Mercury to be contemporary with the so - called Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB), a period of intense asteroid and comet impacts recorded in lunar and asteroidal rocks and by the numerous craters on the Moon, Earth, and Mars, as well as Mercury.

«In addition to the new impact craters and starburst debris patterns, we observed a surprising number of small surface changes which we call splotches,» Speyerer said.

Scientists reported that a large meteorite, called Canyon Diablo after the crater it formed on impact in northern Arizona, contained a new form of diamond with a hexagonal structure.

John Spencer, like Stern a scientist at the Southwest Research Institute, called it «just astonishing» that the first close - up picture of Pluto didn't have a single impact crater.

The moon is a cold, dry orb whose surface is studded with craters and strewn with rocks and dust (called Figure Meteor Crater, Arizona, is a recent impact crater similar to those found on the Moon.