Survival of the impactor during hypervelocity collisions II: An analogue for high porosity targets

TL;DR

This study examines how target porosity influences collision outcomes and projectile fate during hypervelocity impacts, revealing increased implantation and fragment size variation with higher porosity, with minimal projectile alteration.

Contribution

It provides experimental insights into the effects of target porosity on impact outcomes using high-velocity laboratory collisions with analogue materials.

Findings

Implantation increases with target porosity.

Ejecta fragment size distribution becomes steeper with porosity.

Minimal physical change in projectile material after impact.

Abstract

We investigated how a target's porosity affects the outcome of a collision, with respect to the impactor's fate. Laboratory impact experiments using peridot projectiles were performed at a speed range between 0.3 and 3.0 km/s, onto high porosity water-ice (40%) and fine-grained calcium carbonate (70%) targets. We report that the amount of implanted material in the target body increases with increasing target's porosity, while the size frequency distribution of the projectile's ejecta fragments becomes steeper. A supplementary Raman study showed no sign of change of the Raman spectra of the recovered olivine projectile fragments indicate minimal physical change.