Experimental Studies on Slow Impacts and Interaction with Regolith Covered Surfaces in Low Gravity

Splashes from slow impacts into granular materials play an important role in the sculpting of asteroid surfaces and for the structures formed in wind blown sands. This talk I will give an overview of some recent experiments that explore ejecta generation and material redistribution from slow impacts into a granular bed under realistic space condtions. Most prominently an experiment which shows that ejecta created by slow impacts will stay close to the impact site under conditions realistic for a small asteroid, which has implications for observed size sorting effects. However this experiment also found that ejecta will not always be created directly at the impact site. By using photoelastic materials it was possible to identify that subsurface buckling introduced by the impact is responsible for this effect. Also, using similar techniques, it is possible investiage the ejecta creation process when mechanically interacting with planetary surfaces, e.g. landing or sampling, with the goal to identify an interaction design that will minimize ejecta creation.