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Bright Halo Crater (Impact)

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Encyclopedia of Planetary Landforms

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Definition

Halo around fresh impact craters displaying brighter optical albedo, higher radar backscatter, and distinctive thermal properties relative to their surroundings.

Synonyms

Lucid spot (obsolete, Birt 1867), nimbus (obsolete)

Description

Optical and radar-bright halo surrounding fresh craters; often occurring with bright crater rays (Pieters et al. 1985) (Fig. 1). In some cases, a dark collar also is seen adjacent to crater (Dark Halo Crater; impact, optical). Most optically bright fresh craters also have a radar-bright ring (Fig. 2); however, the reverse is not true (Thomson et al. 2013).

Fig. 1
figure 1

A 9.4-km diameter-rayed bright-haloed lobate ejecta crater in Chryse Planitia at 25.8°N, 333°E (Buczkowski et al. 2008) and other bright-haloed craters without lobate ejecta and rays. Scale bar 10 km. Viking color MDIM mosaic (NASA/JPL)

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References

  • Bell SW, Thomson BJ, Dyar MD, Neish CD, Cahill JTS, Bussey DBJ (2012) Dating small fresh lunar craters with Mini-RF radar observations of ejecta blankets. J Geophys Res 117:E00H30. doi:10.1029/2011JE004007

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Planetary Science Research Group, Eötvös Loránd University, Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences, Budapest, Hungary

    Henrik Hargitai

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  1. Henrik Hargitai
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Correspondence to Henrik Hargitai .

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Hargitai, H. (2014). Bright Halo Crater (Impact). In: Encyclopedia of Planetary Landforms. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9213-9_24-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9213-9_24-1

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  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-9213-9

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