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An 800 Myr-old Impact Shower on the Terrestrial Planets from the Breakup of the Eulalia Parent Body

  • Authors: William F. Bottke, David Vokrouhlický, Melissa Dykhuis, Nicolle Zellner

William F. Bottke et al 2026 The Planetary Science Journal 7 .

  • Provider: AAS Journals

Caption: Figure 11.

Modeling the dynamical evolution of the Eulalia family with the center ac = 2.48 au, closer to the J3:1 than our canonical choice. The vertical dashed line in the left panel shows the C-value, though our data (black symbols with formal uncertainties) continue formally farther due to finite bin size and a limited mobility population of objects in the bin containing the C-value. This solution used the bulk density ρ = 1.3 g cm−3, the surface thermal inertia Γ = 230 SI units, and the variable YORP timescale τ0 = 1 My. The best match to the data (left panel) is obtained for T = 865 My and v5 = 30 m s−1 (recall that the characteristic initial ejection velocity is vej(D) = v5 (5 km/D) in meters per second). Here, the small initial distance to the J3:1, combined with a high initial ejection velocity, produces a significant spike in fragment delivery at the family formation event (right panel). With that said, more than twice as many fragments drift to the J3:1 over the next ≃200 My. The overall yield to the resonance is the largest from all solutions shown. Both ordinates are calibrated to the adopted family identification without correcting for its incompleteness.

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