AUTHORS:

Kossacki K.J., Mikołajków T. and Szutowicz S.

ABSTRACT:

This work is aimed at investigating the velocity of landslides on ice-containing cosmic bodies of low gravity. We performed a series of experiments dealing with the sliding of desiccated sand on ice and ice-containing mixtures. Measurements were performed in vacuum and at normal pressure in different spatial scales. The values of the velocity derived from the results of experiments were scaled using the gravitational acceleration relevant for the space objects of different sizes: the nuclei of comets and the dwarf planet Ceres. We have found, that the average velocity of material sliding down a hundred meters long slope on the nucleus of a comet should be of the order 0.01 m s⁻¹, while the velocity of dry landslides on Ceres should be two orders of magnitude higher.

ICARUS, 2024, vol. 421, art. 116227, doi: 10.1016/j.icarus.2024.116227