On Christmas eve 2021, NASA’s InSight lander recorded trembling in the surface of Mars. Scientists had no idea what caused the Marsquake. After examination, it was concluded that a meteor had struck the red planet that caused a magnitude 4 Marsquake.
The InSight lander recorded the quake and also helped scientists find a new crater 492 feet across and 70 feet deep by working with NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. On 27 October, two papers were published in the journal Science in which scientists explained how they discovered the events on Mars using images and seismic data.
Ingrid Daubar of Brown University, leader of InSight’s Impact Science Working Group, stated in its news release, “It’s unprecedented to find a fresh impact of this size. It’s an exciting moment in geological history, and we got to witness it.”
One of the authors said that studying the impact has brought important data to light, it has revealed a seismic fingerprint that is different from past observations.
Unlike Earth’s atmosphere which can burn a small meteor, the atmosphere of Mars is thin with just 1 percent denser. When struck by a meteor, it revealed huge chunks of ice buried around the Martian equator, with debris spreading up to 23 miles. InSight lander has recorded 1,300 Marsquakes in four years, but this quake has reached the planet’s surface.
On February 11, 2022, the Malin Space Science Systems team discovered what looked like a new crater. The Mars Color Imager produce daily maps of the entire planet which enables scientists to point to the weather changes. Due to this activity, the teams found out that the new crater was timed with changes to dust patters.
Identifying the 24-hour period which marked the impact, along with the seismic epicenter data, together concluded that a meteoroid impact had caused a massive Marsquake.
Liliya Posiolova, head of the Orbital Science and Operations Group at Malin, in a news release said, “The image of the impact was unlike any I had seen before, with the massive crater, the exposed ice, and the dramatic blast zone preserved in the Martian dust.” She added, “I couldn’t help but imagine what it must have been like to witness the impact, the atmospheric blast, and debris ejected miles downrange.”
The new crater has unveiled materials buried below the Martian surface. A high-resolution color camera captured images of huge pieces of ice. This has offered a potential resource for water, agriculture, or rocket propellant for future astronauts, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California said. With ice buried so close to the Martian equator, it is being viewed as an appealing location for astronauts to land. This has opened new doors for Mars exploration.
