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If mercury had a heavy atmosphere would there be more or fewer craters on its surface why?
Wiki User
∙ 7y ago
There would be fewer. This is not because, as is widely believed, the atmosphere acts as a shield. While an atmosphere will cause smaller objects to break up, it will not hinder the larger objects that leave craters that are plainly visible from space. However, action from an atmosphere can erode craters and bury them under sediment.
Wiki User
∙ 7y ago
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How do you use crater counts to determine the age of surfaces?
The more craters, the older the surface. If a surface is young, there will be fewer craters.
Why do you think earths surface has fewer craters than the surface than moon does?
Basically, the atmosphere protects the earth to a great degree and the geological process always going on in and on the earth cover and change many crater sites.
Why does earth have fewer impact craters than the moon?
The earth has atmosphere and liquid water, whereas Mercury has neither. Their presence works against the appearance of impact craters in at least two ways: 1). The vast majority of material objects on a course to strike the earth burn up in the atmosphere and never reach the surface. Those that are large enough to survive the entry are reduced in size, mass, and speed before impact. 2). The marks left by impacts that do occur become worn down or "weathered" by the effects of both the atmosphere and the water on earth.
Does the planet Venus' have craters?
Venus has about 1,000 young craters, the biggest of which is Crater Mead, about 170 mile across. Oddly, there is no evidence on Venus of old craters like we see on the moon, Earth, and Mars. Somehow these old craters were smoothed over on Venus . . . by lava flow?? By high winds??
Will a planet with active volcanoes have more or fewer craters than a planet without active volcanoes?
A planet with active volcanoes will have fewer craters, as older craters will tend to be buried by lava and ash.
Why does Venus have craters?
Most debris from space burns up in Earth's atmosphere. What doesn't does reach the surface. The cratered face of our nearest neighbor the moon reflects an impact history far in the past. Objects still strike the moon, but not with the frequency of past eons. The Earth took as many strikes then as well. The functions of weathering that the atmosphere has on the planet, however, has blurred or hidden them. Look at any natural formation such as Hudson Bay, or the Gulf of Mexico, and you can see some of the craters that are still visible. Consider also that 2/3 of the planet is water, and craters in water do not last much longer than it takes for the ripples to disperse.
Why are there fewer craters on earth compared to the moon?
Earth is geologically active and has an atmosphere and water. The moon has none of these. The atmosphere protects Earth from smaller objects, but not from larger ones. When craters do form on Earth, wind water, and ice erode them away and often bury them in sediment. What is left of the craters may be destroyed by plate tectonics as rocks are folded, faulted, or sink into the mantle. Other than asteroids and comet impacts, the moon's surface has changed little since it first formed.
How does a planet's atmosphere affect its number of impact craters?
An atmosphere will lessen both the amount and size of impact craters by burning meteoroids so they get smaller or even disappear entirely. If there is no atmosphere, the object will simply hit the planet or moon with no reduction in its size. Earth's atmosphere does this because the air molecules create friction when the meteoroid passes through it. The friction is hot enough to burn the meteoroid up entirely or at least down in size. An atmosphere means fewer and smaller meteoroids. (When a meteoroid does make it to the ground, it then is called a meteorite.)
Why are there fewer impact craters on the earth than the moon and mercury?
Mainly because of the Earth's atmosphere. First of all, when meteors enter the atmosphere, many of them burn up completely before they reach the surface of the Earth. Secondly, the atmosphere, including wind and rain, tend to obliterate or bury the traces of those impacts that do occur.
What cause the crater's on the Moon's surface?
These craters range in size up to many hundreds of kilometers, but the most enormous craters have been flooded by lava, and only parts of the outline are visible. The low elevation maria (seas) have fewer craters than other areas. This is because these areas formed more recently, and have had less time to be hit.
Would a planet with active or less active volcanoes have more craters?
A planet with fewer active volcanoes would have more craters, as the ash and lava from volcanoes will cover existing craters.
Which planet is less than half the diameter of the earth and look like your own moon?
Mercury best answers this question, as it is the only planet less than half the size of Earth (whereas Mars is about 2/3rds the size of Earth and Venus about 3/4ths) and has almost no atmosphere (like the moon) (whereas Mars has much more atmosphere than the Moon or Mercury, though quite thin compared with the other planets, and Venus has a very thick atmosphere even compared with Earth); this lack of atmosphere lets craters accumulate on Mercury's surface, much like our Moon's; on Venus, Earth and Mars, our atmospheres are thick enough that fewer asteroids are able to survive descent to create craters in the first place and even when asteroids and other bodies in space are able to impact the surfaces of Venus, Earth or Mars, weather will, over time, erode away those impact craters (even on Mars; its atmosphere is sufficiently thick to give it very impressive dust storms which can erode raised crater rims and fill crater basins). However, Mercury has a number of significant differences than the moon, chiefly that it is much denser (in fact, it is denser than earth and all other planets) with a large iron core (the moon has very little iron by comparison) ... in fact, Mercury's iron core is estimated to be larger than Earth's (but has much less stuff outside the core, so the planet overall is significantly smaller than Earth). The moon has no magnetic field of its own, but Mercury does (although only about 1% as strong as earth's). Because it is much closer to the sun, Mercury is much warmer than our Moon.
