Mars Crater
NASA’s InSight Mars rover recorded a magnitude 4 “Marsquake” on December 24 last year, but only now have astronomers confirmed that this was not an ordinary Marsquake, but originated from a quake with a diameter of about 5~ 12-meter meteorite impact. If this meteorite was on Earth, it should have been burnt out by the atmosphere, but due to the thin atmosphere of Mars, the meteorite impact left a crater about 150 meters wide and 21 meters deep, and ejected material up to 37 kilometers Far.
The crater, located in an area called Amazonis Planitia, was discovered by comparing before and after images taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter satellite in orbit around Mars. This may be the largest meteorite impact directly observed by humans in the solar system, so it is even more precious to have the “Marsquake” data left by the InSight probe. Interestingly, this impact also exposed a little water ice under the surface. Astronomers did not expect to find water ice so close to the equator of Mars, so this will be of great help to human exploration of Mars in the future.
In addition to meteorite impacts, another research team believes that 20 of the as many as 1,300 Martian epicenters recorded by InSight may be related to magmatic activity in the subsurface. Mars has always been considered to have had no volcanic activity because of tectonic plate activity, but InSight’s analysis shows that the crust in the Cerberus Fossae region of Mars is thinner and softer. Combined with the local dark sand and dust, it is possible that Mars may have been in the past 50,000 years. There has been volcanic activity.
InSight has been working for nearly four years since it landed on Mars at the end of 2018. However, due to the continuous accumulation of dust on the solar panels, its power supply has continued to decline. By the middle of this year, only the Marsquake detection equipment was left. open. The current InSight mission is expected to end within 6 weeks (that is, before the end of this year), and in addition to recording Martian earthquakes, local weather and various strange sounds, the vibration of a meteorite hitting Mars should also be collected by InSight. One of the greatest achievements.