Yuty crater P07 003802 2025 XI 22N033W P14 006637 2025 XI 22N034W

Yuty is a crater on

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...

Chryse Planitia Chryse Planitia (Greek, "''Golden Plain''") is a smooth circular plain in the northern equatorial region of Mars close to the Tharsis region to the west, centered at . Chryse Planitia lies partially in the Lunae Palus quadrangle, partially in t ...

, named after the town of

Yuty Yuty is a town in the Caazapá Department of Paraguay Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bord ...

in Paraguay. It measures approximately in diameter, and is surrounded by complex ejecta lobes, which are a distinctive characteristic of martian impact craters.

Description

Many craters at equatorial and mid-latitudes on Mars have this form of ejecta morphology, which is thought to arise when the impacting object melts ice in the subsurface. Liquid water in the ejected material forms a muddy slurry that flows along the surface, producing the characteristic lobe shapes. The presence of a pre-existing, partially buried crater on Yuty's southwestern rim is evidence that the ejecta is thin. Yuty is located in the general region of the

Viking 1 ''Viking 1'' was the first of two spacecraft, along with '' Viking 2'', each consisting of an orbiter and a lander, sent to Mars as part of NASA's Viking program. The lander touched down on Mars on July 20, 1976, the first successful Mars la ...

landing site. It was well photographed by the Viking orbiters in the 1970s, and as a consequence its image appears in many books and articles of the era as a type example of Martian impact crater morphology. The distinctive lobate ejecta pattern of craters like Yuty gave rise to a confusing terminology among Mars researchers. Sometimes informally called "splosh craters", Yuty-type craters have also been called petal or flower craters and fluidized ejecta craters. More commonly they are called

rampart crater Rampart craters are a specific type of impact crater which are accompanied by distinctive fluidized ejecta features found mainly on Mars. Only one example is known on Earth, the Nördlinger Ries impact structure in Germany. A rampart crater displ ...

s because the ejecta lobes terminate in curved ridges or ramparts. In today's preferred terminology, Yuty is described as a multiple-layer ejecta (MLE) rampart crater because its ejecta is deposited in a series of three or more discrete layers. The presence of multiple ejecta layers may reflect impact into multiple layers of ice or a subsurface layer saturated with liquid water. The exact process is still somewhat controversial. Yuty is a

complex crater Complex craters are a type of large impact crater morphology. Above a certain threshold size, which varies with planetary gravity, the collapse and modification of the transient cavity is much more extensive, and the resulting structure is cal ...

as opposed to a simple (bowl-shaped) crater. Complex craters are distinguished by having a raised central peak complex and terracing along the inner wall. On Mars, complex crater morphology begins to appear at crater diameters between 5 and 8 km (3.6 to 4.8 miles). The size of the central peak in Yuty is larger than central peaks in comparable craters on other planets. This appears typical of complex craters on Mars and, like the lobate ejecta patterns, may be due to geologic conditions in the subsurface that are unique to Mars (e.g., presence of ice).Boyce, J. M. ''The Smithsonian Book of Mars''; Konecky & Konecky: Old Saybrook, CT, 2008, p. 201.

References

{{Portal bar, Solar System Impact craters on Mars Oxia Palus quadrangle

Description

See also

References