It's unprecedented.
NASA was able to closely study the strike of a meteorite on the surface of the red planet, it announced this Thursday evening.
They were able to photograph the crater created by the meteorite strike, "one of the largest ever seen on Mars since NASA began exploring the cosmos", and also record the sound of the impact (which the agency plays the sound).
This meteorite strike dates back to December 24.
But at that time, NASA did not know what had happened: its lander could have just registered a magnitude 4 earthquake. "Scientists determined that the earthquake was the result of an impact of meteorite when they looked at before and after images (…) and spotted a new gaping crater”, says NASA in a press release, publishing a photo of the crater in question.
Chunks of ice discovered
"The impact, in an area called Amazonis Planitia, dug a crater about 150 meters in diameter and 21 meters deep," said NASA.
“Some of the ejecta projected by the impact flew up to 37 kilometers”, continues the American agency.
“To find a new impact of this size is unprecedented,” says Ingrid Daubar of Brown University.
Many larger craters exist on the Red Planet, but they are much older and predate any Mars mission.
"Additionally, the meteorite excavated boulder-sized chunks of ice buried closer to the Martian equator than ever before."
And the American space agency to see new possibilities: “This is a discovery that has implications for NASA's future plans to send astronauts to the red planet.
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This “major discovery” is the result of two different vessels, the InSight landing module placed on Mars since 2018, as well as the “Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter” probe, which has been studying the red planet since 2005. The lander, which has detected more than 1,300 earthquakes in 4 years, will soon reach the end of its mission, as the dust is accumulating on its solar panels.
The probe has been telling us about the atmosphere and surface of Mars for fifteen years.
