ABSTRACT
Impacts of solid objects, like asteroids and comets, shape the surfaces of all our solar system bodies. Information about these impacts is primarily obtained from remote observations of their remnants: the impact craters that mark the surfaces of planets and moons (Shoemaker 1977; Melosh 1989). Direct observations of impacts are extremely rare and experiments on a comparable, large scale seem hardly feasible. On the laboratory scale objects have been fired at targets with velocities of several km/s (Sugita & Schultz 1999). Whereas these high-speed impact experiments bear some resemblance with smaller planetary craters, resulting from the impact of objects with diameters below one kilometer, the larger craters posses their own distinct features not observed in the laboratory experiments. The most prominent one is undoubtedly the presence of an elevation in the craters center, the so-called central peak.
