A giant rock traveling faster than the speed of sound hit Mars last Christmas Eve, spawning a crater the length of San Diego’s Petco Park and ejecting rocks.
“They traveled the distance between Petco and Cardiff,” said Liliya Posiolova, a researcher at Malin Space Science Systems, or MSSS, in the Sorrento Valley. “When things calmed down, it’s possible that scintillating ice will be discovered in the ejecta. “
This is not a theory. A spacecraft orbiting Mars positioned and photographed the crater in great detail with two cameras built through Malin. He followed Posiolova’s orders, which was based on intuition.
A small dying seismometer on the surface of Mars had recorded what idea of being a magnitude 4. 2 “Mars Earthquake. “Could the vibrations have been caused by a meteorite impact, he wondered?
Posiolova looked deeper. The answer does. Everything is explained in a recent factor of the journal Science and has caused a sensation among researchers who read the composition and evolution of terrestrial bodies.
What Malin and NASA had discovered about the last giant planetary crater known to humans. They did so on Valentine’s Day, less than two months after the rock hit Mars. And, in a bit of chance, they showed that a seismometer and an orbiting spacecraft can be used in combination to temporarily locate and photograph the effects of meteorites on remote planets.
Malin’s images also revealed that the explosive meteoroid, whose power is likely equivalent to 10 tons of TNT, ejected ice just below the planet’s surface. The position where this happened is the southernmost point of the northern hemisphere of Mars, where the presence of ice is greatest. known.
“The position is close to the equator and giant amounts of ice were ejected when this collision occurred,” said Bruce Banerdt, NASA’s principal investigator on InSight, the seismometric tool installed on Mars.
“This water ice is the ultimate vital resource astronauts will want on Mars. And this is closer to the equator, where it’s warmer and less difficult to land.
NASA has said it will place astronauts on Mars in 2033. China has set itself the same goal.
The new discovery has gilded that of Malin, a camera manufacturer that has been lifting the veil over the cosmos for decades.
“MSSS has produced cameras for NASA’s Mars rovers, showing us panoramas that make us feel like we’re on (the planet),” said Lisa Will, a professor of astronomy at San Diego City College.
“His camera on NASA’s Juno spacecraft captured our closest perspectives of Jupiter, with its complex cloud models observed in more detail than ever before.
“MSSS cameras have provided some of the most beautiful and harsh images of our solar system. “
Trying to explore the cosmos with an unmanned spacecraft can be humiliating work. About a portion of the nearly 50 missions launched to Mars since 1960 have been total or partial failures, adding some spacecraft equipped with Clever cameras.
None of the cameras the company flew on missions to Mars failed in their assigned tasks.
“It’s just that we try very hard to fail and we have some chance,” Michael Ravine, Malin’s complex project manager, told the Union-Tribune in 2020, a time before NASA effectively sent the Perseverance rover to Mars.
“We hope our will continue. But again, who knows?
There are many benefits when things fall into place, as evidenced by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which began circling the Red Planet in 2006. Two of its 3 chambers were built through Malin.
The orbiter has revolutionized scientists’ thinking about Mars, especially its history of water. The spacecraft also showed that elements such as lava flows and wind erosion shaped the landscape in the same way as on Earth.
More recently, NASA effectively placed the InSight lander on Mars. It is the length of a compact car and has a very delicate seismometer. planet.
Unlike Earth, Mars has no giant tectonic problems in the past. But the forces produce seismic activity, or Martian earthquakes. The knowledge is helping scientists create three-dimensional models of Mars’ interior.
Most of the Mars earthquakes it records are small. But on Christmas Eve, InSight recorded one of the largest seismic events it had ever seen. This fascinated NASA’s InSight team, which was likely a large Mars earthquake. They warned their employees and added Posiolova in Malin, a company with only 91 employees.
The true nature of the tremor only became apparent later, and largely due to an accident. On February 11, Posiolova used the orbiter to photograph a domain about 2,000 miles northeast of InSight. He had taken photographs of the same site for about two years. earlier.
This time, the images showed something new and remarkable: a giant crater with a giant ejecta field. He pored over the images on Valentine’s Day and, a short time later, recalled that InSight had sent an email at Christmas talking about a giant seismic event. .
Closer examination found that InSight had recorded an earthquake. He had captured the moment a meteoroid hit the planet.
“Even though we don’t have a film about impact, we can combine a lot of what happened,” said Posiolova, who was born and raised in the Soviet Union.
“If there had been observers at (the site), they would have seen, after sunset, a fireball howling in the sky from southwest to northeast, and then an explosion, followed by a lot of debris (with ice) raining down. “
The data it produced “will likely remain a proprietary dataset for (a) decade, just to understand how an effect over released its energy into the environment and subsurface,” said Philippe Lognonné of the University of Paris, another InSight researcher on mission.
Unfortunately, InSight may not be available to help you for long. Dust accumulates on your solar panels, cutting off the power supply.
“Don’t say he’s dying,” Banerdt said. Let’s say he’s retiring. “
As for Posiolova, and work, go ahead.
“I tell people, ‘Every day I’m going to paint on Mars,'” he said. “I wonder what we’re going to do now?”
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