DPS Meeting, Madison, October 1998
Session 51. Kuiper Belt
Contributed Oral Parallel Session, Friday, October 16, 1998, 10:35-11:55am, Madison Ballroom D

## [51.06] Collisional and Cratering Rates in the Kuiper Belt: Applications to Surface Activation and Modification

D. D. Durda, S. A. Stern (Southwest Research Institute)

Our previous work (Stern 1995; {\it Astron. J.} {\bf 110}, 856--868), as well as work by other contributors (e.g., Davis and Farinella 1997; {\it Icarus} {\bf 125}, 50--60) showed that collisional evolution is likely the dominant evolutionary process for Kuiper belt bodies, concluding that the small body population in the 30--50 AU region of the EKB has probably evolved into a collision cascade, implying that short period, Jupiter Family comets, which are derived from the EKB, may not all be primordial. Since that time, however, several important observational selection effects have been identified (Jewitt {\it et al.} 1998; {\it Astron. J.} {\bf 115}, 2125--2135) which suggest that the population of 50 km radius and larger objects is ~ 3 times larger than had been thought ca. 1995; furthermore, various new data has been developed on the number of smaller objects in the 30--50 AU zone (cf., Weissman and Levison 1997; in {\it Pluto and Charon}). We will examine the implications of this revised disk population for the collision rates in the present belt, focusing on impact rates, cratering fractions, and the resultant degree of surface activation and modification that both small and large EKB objects experience.

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