Asteroid-like Asteroid That Destroyed Dinosaurs Crashed on Mars, Creating Giant Tsunami
According to a new study, it is thought that a similar asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs fell on Mars, resulting in a megatsunami hundreds of meters in size.
Maps of the Martian surface show that something big hit the planet 3.4 billion years ago. Research shows that an asteroid hit Mars about 3.4 billion years ago and caused a megatsunami of hundreds of meters. This event experienced by Mars is likened to the Chicxulub collision, which is believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs from the face of the earth about 66 million years ago.
The new study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, analyzed maps of the Martian surface created by combining images from previous missions and identified an impact crater that could have caused a megatsunami.
Asteroid-like Asteroid That Destroyed Dinosaurs Crashed on Mars
Researchers led by Alexis Rodriguez of the Institute of Planetary Science in Arizona say NASA’s Viking 1 Lander, commissioned in 1976 to find evidence of life on Mars, may have also landed near the crater of this megatsunami.
The crater, named Pohl, caused by the asteroid’s impact, is estimated to be about 110 kilometers (68.4 miles) in diameter. The impact zone, which was determined to occur in the region known as Chryse Planitia, north of the Martian equator, is believed to have been an ocean in the past.
Based on the team’s simulation calculations based on the size of the crater and the amount of ground resistance the asteroid encountered, he believes the impacting asteroid could have been about 3 kilometers wide or 9.6 kilometers wide. It is thought that 500,000 megatons to 13 million megatons of TNT energy was released by the impact of the collision. The Tsar, the most powerful bomb known in the world, is only 57 megatons of TNT.
As a result of this crater formed on the surface of Mars, it is thought that a huge tsunami, reaching 250 meters in height and affecting areas 1500 kilometers away, was formed. According to Rodriguez, the Pohl crater could be the key to Mars’ destruction and possible evidence of extinct life. Although Rodriguez says that a new vehicle should be sent here, NASA has no plans to send a new vehicle to Mars in the future. On the other hand, NASA has now gradually turned its target to Venus with the Davinci mission.
