Revealed! The Impact Of Meteoroid Hits On Mars Turns Out To Be Deeper Than Expected

Image of collision at Cerberus Fossae taken by MRO (photo: dock. NASA)

JAKARTA InSight, the lander who studied the vital signs of the planet Mars, gave a new view on the impact of the planet's meteoroid impact. Apparently, the impact was deeper than imagined.

As the first seismometer installer on Mars, this vehicle has detected more than 1,300 mars earthquakes caused by rock cracks on the planet. In addition, the mars earthquake was also caused by space rocks that continued to hit the surface.

Scientists explored the seismic waves produced by the earthquake. They observed the crust, mantle, and planetary core, then compared the results of their observations with the impact crater using NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

Search for Crater with Algorithm

In fact, there are many craters on the Martian surface so the search for craters that form during the earthquake will take time. Therefore, scientists use the machine learning algorithm developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

"If done manually, it will take years," said Valentin Bickel, a member of the InSight team. "By using this tool, we process tens of thousands of images into just a few pictures in a matter of days. It's not as good as humans, but very fast."

Bickel and his colleagues searched the crater within 3,000 kilometers from the InSight location to detect the earthquake. Based on the set time span, they managed to find 123 new craters and 49 of them matched the seismometer-detected earthquake.

Crater Vibrations Deeper Than The diameter

When examined further, they found a impact crater in Cerberus Fossae, an earthquake-prone area. The crater found by scientists is 21.5 meters in diameter with a distance of about 1,640 kilometers from InSight.

The seismic energy of the InSight-detected earthquake turned out to be further than scientists thought. The Martian crust can reduce the seismic waves produced by the collision. When a meteoroid hits Cerberus Fossae, the resulting waves go straight to the planet's mantle.

Now, NASA's InSight team must re-examine Mars' composition model and interior structure to find out how seismic signals can be that deep. In fact, if you look at the diameter alone, the collision at Cerberus Fossae is not that big.