ejecta

meteorite

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June 26, 2026

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Ejecta refers to material that has been thrown out, often from a volcanic eruption. In the context of space, meteorites are natural objects from space that survive their passage through Earth's atmosphere and land on the surface. When a meteorite impacts a planet or moon, it creates a meteorite crater.123

The impact process releases immense energy, vaporizing, melting, and crushing material. This excavation forms a depression, surrounded by an ejecta blanket – the material thrown out from the impact site. While Earth has fewer visible craters due to geological processes like erosion and volcanism, most solid bodies in the solar system are heavily cratered, serving as a record of billions of years of impacts.3

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Mars
Southern cratered highlands
…named because the lobes of ejecta—the material thrown out from the crater and extending around it—are bordered with a low ridge, or rampart. The ejecta apparently flowed across the ground, which may indicate that it had a mudlike consistency. Some scientists have conjectured that the mud formed from a mixture…
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…named because the lobes of ejecta—the material thrown out from the crater and extending around it—are bordered with a low ridge, or rampart. The ejecta apparently flowed across the ground, which may indicate that it had a mudlike consistency. Some scientists have conjectured that the mud formed from a mixture…
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Mercury
Plains
Blanketing by impact crater ejecta and by volcanic ash are examples of this mechanism.
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Blanketing by impact crater ejecta and by volcanic ash are examples of this mechanism.
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Venus
Impact craters
…on Venus and elsewhere, show ejecta around them. Venusian ejecta is unusual, however, in that its outer border commonly shows a lobed or flower-petal pattern, which suggests that much of it poured outward in a ground-hugging flow rather than arcing high above the ground ballistically and falling back to the…
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…on Venus and elsewhere, show ejecta around them. Venusian ejecta is unusual, however, in that its outer border commonly shows a lobed or flower-petal pattern, which suggests that much of it poured outward in a ground-hugging flow rather than arcing high above the ground ballistically and falling back to the…
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