About my Marie Skłodowska-Curie project – How boulder mapping can help reveal how planetary surfaces evolved
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Craters are among the most common features on solid planetary surfaces—planets, moons, and even asteroids. When an impact occurs, rock fragments are ejected from the crater cavity and scattered across the surface, sometimes forming secondary craters in the process. The most enduring evidence of these ejections? Boulders.
Boulders hold the key to understanding ejection mechanisms. Their size, shape, and the terrain where they settle provide clues about the forces involved and the processes that shaped them. By studying these rocky remnants, we can learn a lot about the impact events that formed them, as well as how these events have shaped planetary surfaces over time.
That’s where the BOULDERING project, funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, comes in. Using high-resolution imaging and deep learning, this project aims to investigate boulder populations in greater detail than ever before. By analyzing their size and shape distributions, we hope to uncover patterns that reveal the dynamics of ejection processes and the evolution of planetary surfaces.
The results won’t just help us understand craters on the Moon, Mars, or asteroids—they could also offer broader insights into the history of the Solar System. Stay tuned for more as the project unfolds! 🌌