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Experimental Ejecta Emplacement in Variable Gravity and Its Effects on Landscape Evolution

  • Authors: Kirby D. Runyon, Olivier S. Barnouin, Chloe B. Beddingfield, Daniel D. Durda, Viliam Klein, Carolyn M. Ernst, H. Todd Smith, Constantine C. Tsang

Kirby D. Runyon et al 2026 The Planetary Science Journal 7 .

  • Provider: AAS Journals

Caption: Figure 6.

(A) Runout lengths (i.e., sliding distance from ejecta impact to where the ejecta stops) do not show a clear trend from Moon to Mars/Mercury to Earth gravity; runout lengths overlap and are similar between Moon and Mars/Mercury gravity, but the mean, median, and range of runout are substantially higher under Earth gravity. (B) Runout efficiency (1/R = 2gL/v2) increases with gravity, even as runout length does not conclusively show such a relationship. Here, average gravities achieved on the airplane for each planet are Moon ∼1.6 m s−2; Mars/Mercury ∼3.5 m s−2; and Earth (not conducted on the airplane; small flight catapult results only) = 9.8 m s−2. See gravity measurements in Figure 3. (C) The landing distance-to-runout distance ratio spans between about 0.6–0.95 with a mean of 0.83 and a median of 0.85. The distances are measured from the base of the catapult. This landing-to-runout ratio is most applicable to the region around our measurement position between the continuous and discontinuous ejecta and does not seem to vary as a function of gravity based on our experimental results. Compare the difference in landing to final distance with the runout cartoon shown in Figure 2. (The box-and-whisker plot shows the middle 50% of data (i.e., the interquartile range from the 25th–75th percentiles), the whiskers show the data range less the outliers, and the furthest outliers are shown in red +’s. The red lines and black dots denote the median and mean of each dataset, respectively. The x-axis is semiquantitative; horizontal data spread within a box is only to enhance readability and does not indicate a variation in x-axis value).

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