Impact Features
Craters and basins blasted out by asteroid and comet impacts across the Solar System.
- Caloris PlanitiaSurface featureMercury · ≈ 1,550 km across
One of the largest impact basins in the Solar System, on Mercury, so violent that its antipode is marked by chaotic 'weird terrain' shaken up by the focused seismic waves.
- CopernicusSurface featureThe Moon · ≈ 93 km across
A young, prominent lunar impact crater with terraced walls and bright rays of ejecta, a classic example of a complex crater.
- Gale CraterSurface featureMars
A 154 km impact crater with a central mountain (Aeolis Mons / Mount Sharp) of layered sediments. The Curiosity rover has climbed it, reading a history of ancient lakes.
- Hellas PlanitiaSurface featureMars · ≈ 2,300 km across, ~7 km deep
One of the largest visible impact basins in the Solar System and the lowest point on Mars, deep enough that the atmospheric pressure at its floor can allow liquid water briefly.
- Occator CraterSurface featureCeres
A crater on the dwarf planet Ceres famous for its bright deposits — salts left behind by briny water that reached the surface, hinting at a subsurface reservoir.
- RheasilviaSurface feature4 Vesta · ≈ 500 km across
An enormous impact basin covering much of the south pole of the asteroid Vesta, with a central peak among the tallest in the Solar System. Its excavation launched the HED meteorites.
- ValhallaSurface featureCallisto · rings span ~3,800 km
A giant multi-ring impact structure on Callisto — concentric rings of ridges rippling out from a bright central plain across the most heavily-cratered surface in the Solar System.