Crater of Mars
NASA’s InSight Mars rover recorded a magnitude 4 “marsquake” on December 24 last year, but only now have astronomers confirmed that it was not a normal tidal earthquake, but originated from an earthquake with a diameter of about 5 ~ 12 meters of meteorite impact. If this meteorite were on Earth, it would have had to be burned by the atmosphere, but due to the thin atmosphere of Mars, the impact of the meteorite left a crater about 150 meters wide and 21 meters deep and ejected material up to 37 kilometers of distance.
The crater, located in an area called Amazonis Planitia, was discovered by comparing before and after images taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter satellite orbiting Mars. This could be the largest meteor impact observed directly by humans in the solar system, so it is even more valuable to have the “Marsquake” data left behind by the InSight spacecraft. Interestingly, this impact also exposed some water ice below the surface. Astronomers did not expect to find water ice this close to Mars’ equator, so this will be of great help for exploration. human of Mars in the future.
In addition to meteorite impacts, another research team believes that 20 of the 1,300 Martian epicenters recorded by InSight may be related to underground magma activity. Mars has always been thought to have had no volcanic activity due to plate tectonic activity, but InSight’s analysis shows that the crust in the Cerberus Fossae region of Mars is thinner and softer. local dust, it is possible that Mars may have been in the past 50,000 years There has been volcanic activity.
InSight ever since Since landing on Mars at the end of 2018has been in operation for nearly four years, but due to the continued accumulation of sand and dust on the solar panels, its power supply has continued to decline and, by the middle of this year, only the earthquake detection equipment was still open. The current InSight mission is expected to be completed within six weeks (i.e. by the end of this year) and on top of registrationMarsquake、local weatherAndall kinds of weird soundsPlus, being able to take the shock of a meteor hitting Mars should also be one of InSight’s biggest hits.
