ArticleNature communications2025
Increased small impactor flux on the Moon as inferred from regolith thickness at the Chang'E-5 Region.
Article in Nature communications, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Increased small impactor flux on the Moon as inferred from regolith thickness at the Chang'E-5 Region.Nature communications · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Knowledge of the small impactor flux on the Moon can provide critical insights into lunar geological evolution and the dynamics of the inner solar system. However, it cannot be directly deciphered from the observed populations of small craters due to their rapid degradation. Impact-generated lunar regolith records the contribution from historical impacts of various sizes and is particularly sensitive to sub-hectometer craters, providing a unique means to estimate the small impactor flux. Here we estimate the distribution of regolith thickness in the Chang'E-5 landing region (the youngest radiometric-dated homogeneous mare unit) through both statistics of fresh crater morphology and regolith evolution simulations using different impact flux hypotheses. The large median regolith thickness of 3.6±0.3 m derived from crater morphology can be attributed solely to a higher production rate of small lunar craters at sub-hectometer scales, which is 1.2-1.6 times higher than previously estimated. Such an increased small impactor flux may occur at ∼600 Ma and indicate recent asteroid breakup events, or could have persisted over the past 2 Ga, as a result of the preferential delivery of small impactors through the Yarkovsky and YORP effects.
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