47th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (2016) 1281.pdf CRATERING ON CERES: THE PUZZLE OF THE MISSING LARGE CRATERS. S. Marchi1, D. P. O'Brien2, P. Schenk3, R. Fu4, A. Ermakov5, M. C. De Sanctis6, E. Ammannito7, D. A. Williams8, S. C. Mest2, C. A. Raymond9, C. T. Russell7; 1Southwest Research Institute (
[email protected]), Boulder, CO; 2Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, AZ; 3Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, TX; 4Lamont-Doherty Earth Ob- servatory, Palisades, NY; 5Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA; 6Istituto Nazionale d'Astrofisica, Rome, Italy; 7University of California, Los Angeles, CA; 8Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ; 9JPL, Caltech, Pasadena, CA. Introduction: Data acquired by the Dawn space- hemisphere, although heavily craters terrains are also craft revealed a portrait of Ceres's surface that, in many found at low latitudes. This observation tells us that to- ways, challenges our preconceived expectations. pographic relaxation due to the presence of an ice-rich Ceres is the largest object in the main belt of aster- shell has to be limited. Furthermore, an improved oids. As such, extensive ground-based and Hubble model of topographic relaxation has constrained the Space Telescope observations have provided a wealth fraction of ice to be <30% in the outer shell [9]. of information [e.g. 1,2] Ceres' surface has a very low A second major finding is the lack of larger craters. albedo (~9 %) [2], while the lack of significant absorp- The largest well recognizable craters are 260-280 km tions bands at visible and near-infrared wavelengths in diameter. Although large scale topography relaxes points toward a more pristine composition [e.g., 3,4] if faster than at small scales, the lack of large craters compared to many siblings in the asteroid belt (and no- seems at odds with the presence of heavily cratered ter- tably to the large asteroid Vesta).