California: Just over a year ago, a space rock hurtled through the Martian atmosphere, broke apart, and slammed into Mars.
NASA just revealed footage of the new impact craters on Sept. 19, as well as three other earlier impacts. The collisions were significant enough for the space agency’s geologic probe, InSight, to detect “marsquakes” from up to 180 miles away.
“After three years of InSight waiting to detect an impact, those craters looked beautiful,” Ingrid Daubar, a planetary scientist at Brown University, said in a NASA statement.
The image atop this story shows the result of a meteoroid — a space rock that has yet to impact the surface — that exploded in the Martian atmosphere into at least three “shards,” ultimately leaving three fresh craters in the ground, NASA explained. The InSight lander, equipped with a sensitive seismometer, detected the explosion and impacts. Although InSight is running out of power, it certainly continues to make meaningful extraterrestrial observations.
After InSight detected the booms, NASA sent its Martian satellite, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, to scour the region for darkened patches on the desert floor. Dark areas are telltale evidence of newly disturbed soil and dust. (The unnatural blue hues are added to make impact details more apparent.)
What's that? Oh, just the sound of new craters being made on Mars. Sound up for the latest from the @NASAInSight lander, whose seismometer picked up the signal of a meteoroid hitting the Martian atmosphere, breaking up, and hitting the ground: https://t.co/hyzc5F1BrM pic.twitter.com/cB7UjDerbR
— NASA (@NASA) September 19, 2022
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