Two NASA spacecraft record largest meteor impacts on Mars: ‘We were so lucky’ – National | Globalnews.ca

Two NASA spacecraft on Mars – one on the surface and the other in orbit – have recorded the largest meteorite impacts and impact craters to date.

Last year’s high-velocity fires sent seismic waves rippling thousands of kilometers across Mars, the first ever detected near the surface of another planet, and eroding craters nearly 150 meters in diameter, scientists reported Thursday in of Science magazine.

The larger of the two strikes churned out rock-sized sheets of ice that could help researchers look for ways future astronauts can tap into Mars’ natural resources.

The Insight lander measured the seismic tremors, while the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter provided stunning images of the resulting craters.

Mapping the craters “would have been huge,” but matching the seismic waves was a bonus, said co-author Liliya Posiolova of Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego. “We were so lucky.”

Mars’ atmosphere is thin, unlike Earth’s, where the thick atmosphere prevents most space rocks from reaching the ground, instead they fracture and burn.

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A separate study last month linked a recent series of smaller meteorite impacts on Mars to smaller craters closer to InSight, using data from the same lander and orbiter.

The impact observations come as InSight nears the end of its mission as energy dies down and dust storms blanket the solar panels. InSight landed on the equatorial planes of Mars in 2018 and has since recorded more than 1,300 marsquakes.

“It will be heartbreaking when we finally lose communications with InSight,” said Bruce Banerdt of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the lander’s chief scientist who participated in the studies. “But the data he sent us will certainly keep us busy for years to come.”

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Banerdt estimated that the lander would have four to eight weeks before the power went out.

The incoming space rocks were between 16 feet and 40 feet (5 meters and 12 meters) in diameter, Posiolova said. The impacts registered about a magnitude 4.

The larger of the two struck about 2,200 miles (3,500 kilometers) from InSight last December, leaving a crater about 70 feet (21 meters) deep. The orbiter’s cameras showed debris hurled up to 40 kilometers from the impact, as well as patches of white ice around the crater, the most frozen water observed at such low latitudes, Posiolova said.

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Posiolova discovered the crater earlier this year after taking additional images of the region from orbit. The crater was missing from previous photos, and after sifting through the archives, she located the impact in late December. She recalled a large seismic event recorded by InSight at the time, and with the help of that team, matched the fresh hole to what was undoubtedly a meteorite impact. The blast wave was clearly visible.

Scientists also learned that the lander and orbiter had teamed up for an earlier meteorite impact that was more than twice as distant as December’s and slightly smaller.

“Everyone was just shocked and amazed. Another one? Yes,” she recalled.

Seismic readings from the two impacts indicate denser Martian crust beyond InSight’s position.

“We still have a long way to go to understand the internal structure and dynamics of Mars, which remain largely enigmatic,” said Doyeon Kim of the Institute of Geophysics at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, who was involved in the research.

Outside scientists said future countries from Europe and China will carry even more advanced seismometers. Future missions will paint “a clearer picture” of how Mars evolved, wrote Yingjie Yang and Xiaofei Chen of China’s Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen in an accompanying editorial.

© 2022 The Associated Press