Impactor Population for the Uranian Satellites

ROSSIGNOLI, N. L.; DI SISTO R.P.

Congreso; Asteroids, Comets, Meteors ACM 2023; 2023

The Uranian satellite system presents a unique environment for the study of outer solar system impact bombardment. Alongside the heliocentric impactor population originated in the transneptunian region, a planetocentric impactor population linked to Uranus’ large spin-axial tilt may play an important role in shaping the satellites’ crater distributions. Of the 27 satellites, only the five classical moons and the small inner satellite Puck were imaged with sufficient resolution to explore their crater populations. In this work, we present our impact cratering model for the Uranian satellite system considering both heliocentric and planetocentric impactor populations, and compare our results with the observational crater counts studied with reprocessed Voyager 2 images.