5 incredible craters that will make you fall in love with the grandeur of our Solar System

Impact cratering happens on every solid body in the Solar System. In fact, it is the dominant process affecting the surfaces on most extraterrestrial bodies today. On Earth, however, such craters are often lost over time by active geological processes, but elsewhere in the Solar System there are some truly majestic examples of impact craters preserved for all to see. Here, we pick our highlights of what the Solar System has to offer.

1. South Pole–Aitken basin, the Moon

• Our first crater is a big one: the biggest, deepest and oldest impact crater on the Moon.
• It is 2,500km diameter, 6.2 to 8.2km deep and formed roughly 4.2 billion years ago.
• As the name suggests, it is at the south pole on the far side of the Moon, although the crater rim can be seen from Earth as a dark mountain range, just on the border between the light and dark side of the moon.

2. Unnamed Crater (S1094b), Mars

• There are many famous craters on Mars, from the homes of Mars rovers (Gale Crater for Curiosity or Jezero for Perseverance) to the hypothesised source regions of Mars meteorites (Tooting or Mojave).
• While Mars rovers claim all the glory for exploring the Martian surface, the satellites orbiting Mars have been making discoveries of their own for decades.

3. Enki Catena, Ganymede

• Enki Catena is a chain crater on Ganymede, one of the Galilean satellites of Jupiter.
• At latest count, Jupiter has more than 90 moons, a mini planetary system of its own.
• There are also strings of craters found on two of the moons, Callisto and Ganymede.
• Enki Catena is a chain of 13 craters which crosses from an area of dark to bright terrain on Ganymede.

4. Occator Crater, Ceres

• The Occator crater on Ceres is impressive because it contains a bright spot in the centre that has been observed both from space, and from Earth at Mauna Kea Observatory, Hawaii.
• NASA’s Dawn mission entered an orbit around Ceres in 2015, and imaged the bright spot in Occator crater known as “Spot 5”.

5. Aurelia, Venus

• It is when it comes to size, but the surface images we have of Venus show the planets have very different features.
• Venus has a thick cloudy atmosphere, and visible-light cameras can’t see through to the surface.
• Speaking of volcanoes on Venus, recently a group from the University of Alaska Fairbanks used this Magellan data to find the first active volcano on Venus NASA has three Venus missions in development over the next 10 years, so hopefully soon we will know much more about our enigmatic twin.