The Evolution of Occator Crater and Its Faculae Revealed by Highest Resolution Observations of Ceres
50th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference 2019 (LPI Contrib. No. 2132) 1619.pdf THE EVOLUTION OF OCCATOR CRATER AND ITS FACULAE REVEALED BY HIGHEST RESOLUTION OBSERVATIONS OF CERES. J.E.C. Scully1, P.M. Schenk2, D.A. Williams3, D.L. Buczkowski4, J.H. Pasckert5, K.D. Duarte6, V.N. Romero6, M.M. Sori7, M. Landis8, L.C. Quick9, B.E. Schmidt6, C.A. Raymond1, J.C. Castillo-Rogez1, C.T. Russell10, 1Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA, 2LPI, Houston, TX, USA, 3ASU, Tempe, AZ, USA, 4JHU-APL, Laurel, MD, USA, 5Institute für Planetologie, WWU Mün- ster, Germany, 6Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA, 7LPI, Tucson, AZ, USA, 8PSI, Tucson, AZ, USA, 9National Air & Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, USA, 10UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA. Introduction: The Dawn mission explored Ceres, interior before solidifying [6,9]. It is apparent from the the largest object in the asteroid belt, from 2015-2018 XM2 data that the lobate material coats almost the entire [1]. Occator crater (92 km diameter) contains enigmatic crater interior. While the large, thick sheet (label a in interior bright regions, named Cerealia Facula and Vi- figure) and smaller, isolated, pond-like deposits of lo- nalia Faculae. The faculae are six times brighter than bate material were observed in pre-XM2 data, the thin- Ceres’ average [2], are mostly sodium carbonate [3] and ner veneer of lobate material that coats the majority of are only a few millions of years old [4]. the terraces and the crater floor is only clearly visible in Previous Work: A special issue of Icarus sought to the XM2 images (label b in figure).
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