Mars faced a continual rain of meteors over 600 million years. So did Earth, Mars. Collisions between objects in the asteroid belt are likely responsible.
New research shows that Mars has faced a constant rain of meteors during the last 600 million years. This finding contradicts previous research showing that the impact rate has varied, with prominent activity spikes. Why would anyone care how often meteors rained down on Mars, a planet that’s been dead for billions of years?Who wouldn’t want to know our planet’s history?
The team of researchers behind this new study used a previously-developed crater detection algorithm to analyze the formation of more than 500 large craters on Mars. “The crater detection algorithm provides us with a thorough understanding of the formation of impact craters, including their size and quantity, and the timing and frequency of the asteroid collisions that made them.”
Co-author and leader of the team that created the algorithm, Professor Gretchen Benedix, said the algorithm could also work on other planetary surfaces, including the Moon, with some adaptations. “The formation of thousands of lunar craters can now be dated automatically, and their formation frequency analyzed at a higher resolution to investigate their evolution,” Professor Benedix said.
This image shows an example of the crater data in the study. It shows crater counts on an ejecta blanket of a 40 km impact crater. Ejecta blanket mapping and automatically detected craters . Red circles correspond to impact craters larger than 1 km in diameter. Close-up of a part of the ejecta blanket showing detected craters over the CTX Global mosaic.