{"id":793389,"date":"2025-02-06T10:43:05","date_gmt":"2025-02-06T15:43:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=793389"},"modified":"2025-02-06T10:43:05","modified_gmt":"2025-02-06T15:43:05","slug":"a-recent-impact-on-mars-shook-the-planet-to-its-mantle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=793389","title":{"rendered":"A Recent Impact on Mars Shook the Planet to Its Mantle"},"content":{"rendered":"


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New research suggests an impact recently rattled Mars deeper than thought.<\/em><\/p>\n

HiRISE images a recent impact crater in the Cerberus Fossae region, seen on March 4, 2021. Credit: NASA\/MRO\/HiRISE<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Something really rang the Red Planet\u2019s bell. Research involving two NASA missions\u2014the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and the late InSight lander\u2014has shed light on meteorite impacts and the seismic signals they produce. In a crucial finding, these signals may penetrate deeper inside Mars than previously thought. This could change how we view the interior of Mars itself.<\/p>\n

\"Mars
The interior of Mars, and InSight\u2019s detection of impacts versus geologic activity. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The study comes from two papers published this week in the journal of Geophysical Research Letters<\/em>. The primary data comes from NASA\u2019s InSight mission, the first dedicated geodesy mission to Mars. Insight landed in the Elysium Planitia region of Mars on November 26th<\/sup>, 2018, and carried the first ever dedicated seismometer to the Red Planet. During its four years of operation, Insight detected over 1,300 \u2018marsquakes,\u2019 until the mission\u2019s end in 2022. Most were due to geologic activity, while a few were due to distant meteorite impacts. Occasionally, InSight would even see \u2018land tides\u2019 due to the passage of the moon Phobos overhead.<\/p>\n

\"SEIS
InSight uses its robotic arm to place a wind shield over the SEIS seismometer. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A Distant Mars Impact<\/h2>\n

As on Earth, the detection of seismic waves gives us the opportunity to probe the interior of Mars, providing clues as to the density, depth and thickness of the crust, mantle and core. To be sure, impacts have been correlated to seismic waves captured by InSight in the past: a fresh crater seen by NASA\u2019s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) in 2022 was correlated to an impact in the Amazonis Planitia region. But this was the first time an impact in the quake-prone Cerberus Fossae area was linked to InSight detections. The find is especially intriguing, as the area is quarter of a world away from the InSight landing site, at 1,640 kilometers (1,019 miles) distant.<\/p>\n

\"Fossae\"
A wider context view of the Cerberus Fossae region on Mars, courtesy of Mars Odyssey. NASA\/JPL-Caltech. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The discovery of the 21.5-meter (71 foot) crater about the length of a semi-truck immediately presented scientists with a mystery. The smoking gun impact crater was more distant than thought. Typically, the Martian crust was thought to have a dampening effect on distant impacts\u2026 this meant that the impact generated waves that took a more direct route via a \u2018seismic highway,\u2019 through the deeper mantle of the planet itself.<\/p>\n

A New View of the Interior of Mars? <\/h2>\n

This discovery has key implications for what we generally think about the interior of Mars, implying that our understanding and model for the planet\u2019s interior may be due for an overhaul.<\/p>\n

\u201cComposition of the crust and how seismic waves from impacts travel through them is one factor,\u201d Andrew Good (NASA-JPL) told Universe Today<\/em>. \u201cNo current plans for follow-on seismometers on Mars, but there is a seismometer planned for the Moon in the near future,\u201d says Good, in reference to the Farside Seismic Suite planned for 2026. <\/p>\n

Just how researchers imaged the tiny crater is the amazing second part of the story. NASA\u2019s venerable MRO generates tens of thousands of images of the surface of Mars, mainly via the spacecraft\u2019s onboard Context Camera. For years, researchers have used a machine learning algorithm to sift through the images, looking for fresh impact sites that do not appear in previous frames. These areas are in turn flagged for closer scrutiny with the mission\u2019s 0.5-meter High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera. The AI program was developed by NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.<\/p>\n

\"Crater
A crater cluster on Mars, one of the first spotted courtesy the MRO AI search program. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/MSSS.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To date, the team has found 123 new craters within 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles) of the InSight landing site, 49 of which (including the Cerberus Fossae impact) are potential matches with InSight seismology data.<\/p>\n

\u201cDone manually, this would be years of work,\u201d says InSight team member Valentin Bickel (University of Bern, Switzerland) in a recent press release. \u201cUsing this tool, we went from tens of thousands of images to just a handful in a matter of days.\u201d<\/p>\n

InSight\u2019s Legacy<\/h2>\n

InSight provided a wealth of seismology and geological information about Mars. The Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) instrument worked as planned. The Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP^3) failed, however, to reach its target depth for returning useful science about the planet\u2019s interior. Unfortunately, no dedicated follow on geology mission is set to head to Mars. This sort of exciting science will probably have to wait until the hoped for crewed missions of the 2030s.<\/p>\n