Vesta is a Planet !

[renormalised (Carl)]

Yes....however, a body doesn't have to have a crust for these types of waves to be generated by an impact. Any large impact (or small one for that matter) with generate longitudinal waves in the body of the impacted object. The results of the waves travelling through the body depend on the size of the impact.

[N1CK06 (Nick)]

So if Vesta was a uniform body (by this I mean a solid rock throughout with no differentiation) would you still see the lines/ripples/troughs/whatever-you-call-it near the equator?

Geologically speaking I'm trying to see a similarity with the process of mountain building here on Earth. i.e. Two pieces of crust colliding together and crumpling causing intense deformation and hence mountains. Only in this case replacing once piece of crust with a large asteroid and the other with Vesta's surface. (of course ignoring time-scales here because there would be a HUGE difference between the two events!).

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by N1CK06

So if Vesta was a uniform body (by this I mean a solid rock throughout with no differentiation) would you still see the lines/ripples/troughs/whatever-you-call-it near the equator?

Geologically speaking I'm trying to see a similarity with the process of mountain building here on Earth. i.e. Two pieces of crust colliding together and crumpling causing intense deformation and hence mountains. Only in this case replacing once piece of crust with a large asteroid and the other with Vesta's surface. (of course ignoring time-scales here because there would be a HUGE difference between the two events!).

Yes.....the composition of the rock is immaterial. It's how big the impactor is as to whether it will deform the rock in that fashion. All impacts will produce longitudinal waves in the rocks, it's just that most of them won't produce visible ones because they're not large enough to deform the rocks in that way.

No similarity at all to mountain building. One is due to tectonic process, the other is due to one off cataclysmic processes. Different scales of deformation, energy involved, different types of deformation, speed of the deformation etc etc etc.