An overview and perspective of identifying lunar craters  

作　　者：Yan JIANG Changyi Xu Ling CHEN 

机构地区：[1]State Key Laboratory of Lithospheric Evolution,Institute of Geology and Geophysics,Chinese Academy of Sciences,Beijing 100029,China [2]College of Earth and Planetary Sciences,University of Chinese Academy of Sciences,Beijing 100029,China [3]Key Laboratory of Earth and Planetary Physics,Institute of Geology and Geophysics,Chinese Academy of Sciences,Beijing 100049,China

出　　处：《Science China Earth Sciences》2024年第5期1395-1416,共22页中国科学（地球科学英文版）

基　　金：supported by the Institute of Geology and Geophysics,Chinese Academy of Sciences(Grant Nos.IGGCAS202102,IGGCAS-201904);the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant Nos.42288201,41704080,42274114);the National Key Research and Development Program of China(Grant No.2022YFF0503200)。

摘　　要：The spatiotemporal evolution of lunar impact craters is crucial for investigating lunar interior structure,internal and external dynamic processes,and interplanetary impact history.Advances in lunar crater identification are reviewed based on topography and gravity data,and the features and mechanisms of topographic or buried craters are analyzed regarding morphology,gravity anomalies,gravity gradients,and the underlying crust-mantle interface relief.Based on the compiled crater catalog,the early lunar impact flux and thermal evolution are further discussed according to the basin ages and their interior structures.For some ancient impact basins,the crater size-frequency distribution measurements revealed age discrepancies from previous studies,suggesting that the lunar late heavy bombardment event started at~3.95 Ga.The degraded bulge structures of the crust-mantle interface beneath mare basins reveal that these basins formed on the lunar crust surface under high-temperature conditions and underwent prolonged relaxation compared to highland basins.Finally,we reveal that the up-to-date identification of lunar buried craters remains inaccurate and incomplete,preventing us from accurately reconstructing lunar and interplanetary impact histories.Therefore,we propose that a gravity model constructed using localized orthogonal basis functions can be useful for identifying lunar craters.

关 键 词：MOON Gravity field CRATERS Impact flux Early evolution 

分 类 号：P184.8[天文地球—天文学]