Measurements of post shock temperatures in the process of crater formation on ice

Abstract

Post shock temperature of water ice is one of the most important heat sources for the accretional heating of ice bodies and the viscous relaxation of impact craters. Therefore we conducted impact experiments of water ice and measured the post shock temperature of impact crater by using an infrared video camera. According to the obtained temperature profiles, we estimated the ratio of the thermal energy deposited in the crater to the projectile kinetic energy, which corresponds the efficiency of the energy conversion from the projectile kinetic energy to the irreversible heat. As a results, we found that about 10% of the projectile kinetic energy was partitioned into the post shock heating of the impact crater.