Craters on the surface of Mars photographed by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)
[The Epoch Times, March 31, 2024](Epoch Times reporter Linda compiled and reported) Scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California discovered that a meteorite may have caused more than one explosion on Mars. , but billions of craters.
According to a report by New Scientist magazine on March 14, in addition to the 2.3 million-year-old Corinto crater, which is more than 8.6 miles in diameter, this meteorite collision also produced billions of secondary craters. The impact kicked up a large amount of rock, which triggered a chain reaction that created more craters as it fell.
By analyzing satellite images, JPL’s Matthew Golombek and colleagues estimated the number of impact craters and concluded that Corinto had 1.3 to 3 billion “secondary craters.” Each crater is at least 33 feet in diameter.
This research could help people understand the complex geological processes on the surface of Mars and how its landscape and composition have changed over time. This is an especially important area of research as humans prepare to send astronauts to the Red Planet.
The area filled with billions of craters is huge, covering 540,000 square miles, and coincidentally, it also includes the landing site of NASA’s InSight Mars Lander.
“Quantitative studies of the number of secondary craters are important for understanding how a relatively small crater could eject so much material during its formation,” Golombek told New Scientist.
Other, more recent meteorite impacts have yielded equally fascinating discoveries. In 2022, InSight detected a massive Martian earthquake and later discovered it was caused by one of the largest meteors hitting the Martian surface about 2,000 miles from the InSight lander.
Scientists say the impact was so powerful that it exploded huge chunks of underground ice. ◇#
Editor in charge: Sun Yun
