Aug/Sept '18 Lite Challenge Entry: Shot through the Mountains

[jshoer]

I know I need to rotate the little island in the center so it's more in line with the impact trajectory.

Great start! Here's a fun fact about impact craters: they are very nearly always circular, even when the meteor comes in at a raking angle. The reason is that the elongation of the crater depends on momentum, m*v, while the size of the crater depends on kinetic energy, 0.5*m*v^2, and v^2 gets much bigger than v at high velocity. Basically, it's like the meteor digs itself into the ground and then blows up like an antimatter bomb, making a circular hole! Craters on other planets do have slight elliptical shapes, it's just that they are very faint ellipses. The central peak happens when the impactor is big enough to make a big crater. Even larger impactors can make central rings. There are lots of great examples in Moon images.

Now, that doesn't mean that pre-existing geology can't have an effect on crater shape. Meteor Crater in Arizona, for instance, seems slightly squarish - that's because there were faults criscrossing through the area that made it easier for the impactor to dig up material along the faults, giving the square its points. How a mountain range would affect it....I'm not quite sure. Maybe there are some examples on the Moon.

[mirandaleiggi]

Great start! Here's a fun fact about impact craters: they are very nearly always circular, even when the meteor comes in at a raking angle. The reason is that the elongation of the crater depends on momentum, m*v, while the size of the crater depends on kinetic energy, 0.5*m*v^2, and v^2 gets much bigger than v at high velocity. Basically, it's like the meteor digs itself into the ground and then blows up like an antimatter bomb, making a circular hole! Craters on other planets do have slight elliptical shapes, it's just that they are very faint ellipses. The central peak happens when the impactor is big enough to make a big crater. Even larger impactors can make central rings. There are lots of great examples in Moon images.

Now, that doesn't mean that pre-existing geology can't have an effect on crater shape. Meteor Crater in Arizona, for instance, seems slightly squarish - that's because there were faults criscrossing through the area that made it easier for the impactor to dig up material along the faults, giving the square its points. How a mountain range would affect it....I'm not quite sure. Maybe there are some examples on the Moon.

Thanks for the feedback and all of the info. Definitely super useful. I will scour the interwebs to see if I can find some mountain references. But I think I will also circle out the crater a little more.
Thanks!