Meteor collision shakes Mars recorded by InSight

Meteor collision shakes Mars recorded by InSight
by Erica Marchand
Paris, France (SPX) Feb 04, 2025

A space rock crashed into the martian surface in February 2021, generating seismic waves that extended 1640 km to reach NASA's InSight lander. The collision carved out a crater about 21 m wide and disturbed roughly 1400 m. ESA's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), through its Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System (CaSSIS), captured the explosive moment.

Marsquakes, the martian counterparts of earthquakes, commonly coincide with meteor strikes on our neighboring planet. Over the past two decades, scientists have meticulously analyzed images and catalogued hundreds of fresh impact sites scattered across Mars.

Recently, researchers have embraced artificial intelligence to accelerate the process of detecting new craters and linking data from five different orbital instruments. One of these instruments is Europe's CaSSIS camera.

Two new papers in the Geophysical Research Letters journal indicate that several of the seismic events measured by InSight, previously assumed to be tectonic, may actually be triggered by meteor impacts. This false-color depiction of a fresh crater in Cerberus Fossae, a seismically active region on Mars, was pivotal to that revelation.

Scientists leveraged high-resolution imagery from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's Context Camera and HiRISE, ESA's TGO CaSSIS, and Mars Express's High Resolution Stereo Camera. This combined effort pinpointed a newly formed crater that materialized at the same time as a quake registered by InSight's instruments.

This identification helped researchers refine their grasp of the planet's seismic cues, shedding light on how different types of vibrations spread through Mars at varying depths and speeds.

By pinpointing the exact spot of the impact, scientists discovered that seismic waves travel more swiftly and deeply than initially believed, effectively creating a seismic superhighway. Further data on how frequently impacts occur, along with crater sizes, will help prepare for possible risks to robots, crewed missions, and any future settlements on the Red Planet.

Although these findings reveal that meteors strike Mars at rates up to two-and-a-half times higher than expected, ESA's space safety initiative remains focused on devising methods to prevent and minimize threats posed by cosmic hazards.

TGO continues to survey Mars from orbit, studying its geological history and searching for potential habitability. Besides sending home breathtaking pictures, the craft also provides an unparalleled record of atmospheric gases and locates water-bearing regions on the planet.

On 3 November 2023, TGO recorded the site at Cerberus Fossae (163.07E, 9.25N). The full CaSSIS image, labeled MY37_026527_170, offers a detailed view of this recent impact.

Research Report:Systematic Identification and Association with 1 InSight Seismic Events

Research Report:Unraveling Seismic Propagation Paths through a Cerberus Fossae Impact Detection