A mega tsunami hit Mars after a huge asteroid hit the Red Planet
A new study finds that a Martian tsunami — a giant killer wave that may have reached more than 80 stories high — may have blasted across the Red Planet after a cosmic impact similar to the one that likely ended the age of the dinosaurs on Earth.
Although the surface Mars It is now cold and dry, and a great deal of evidence indicates that ocean waters covered the Red Planet billions of years ago. previous search I found signs that two meteor strikes may have caused it A pair of megatsunami (Opens in a new tab) About 3.4 billion years ago, the oldest tsunami inundated about 309,000 square miles (800,000 square km), while the most recent one submerged an area of about 386,000 square miles (1 million square km).
a Study 2019 Found what it could be Zero point for the smaller megatsunami Lomonosov Crater, a 75-mile-wide (120 km) hole in the Earth in the icy plains of the Martian north pole. Its large size indicates that the cosmic impact that excavated the crater itself was large, similar in scope to one that was 6 miles (10 km) across. asteroid that It was struck near what is now the town of Chicxulub In Mexico 66 million years ago, which led to a mass extinction that killed 75% of the Earth’s species, including all dinosaurs except birds.
Related: Stunning images of Mars taken by the Curiosity rover show ancient climate change
Now the new study has pinned down what may be the origin point for the older megatsunami – the 69-mile-wide (111 km) Buhl Crater, which International Astronomical Union Named after the master of science fiction Frederick Paul in August.
Scientists focused on the NASA landing site Viking 1, the first spacecraft to successfully operate on Mars. Vikings 1 landed in 1976 on Chryse Planitia, a smooth, circular plain in the northern equatorial region of Mars. The probe landed near the endpoint of a giant canal, Maja Valles, that was dug by an ancient cataclysmic flood, marking the first time scientists have identified an extraterrestrial landscape bestowed by a river.
Unexpectedly, instead of discovering the flood-related features scientists had expected from the site, such as streamlined islands worn by the rushing waters, they found a boulder-strewn plain. Researchers now suggest that these rocks may be debris from a megatsunami, the giant wave that carried pulverized rock away from the cosmic collision site.
Study lead author Alexis Rodriguez, a planetary scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Arizona, told Space.com.
Scientists analyzed maps of the Martian surface, which were created by combining images from previous missions to the planet. This helped them identify Pohl, which is about 560 miles (900 km) from the Viking 1 landing site, within a region of the northern lowlands of Mars.
“The northern plains of Mars consist of a huge basin, where about 3.4 billion years ago an ocean formed and then froze,” Rodriguez said. “The ocean is believed to have formed as a result of catastrophic floods released from aquifers. So my initial approach in looking for a megatsunami effect was to look for a crater under the frozen remnants of the ocean and over channels that caused the flood drainage that forms the oceans.” Pohl was the crater, he noted. The only ones found by scientists that met this criterion.
The researchers simulated cosmic impacts on this region to see what kind of influence might have caused Buhl’s formation. Their findings indicate that the Viking 1 landing site is “part of a giant sediment that originated about 3.4 billion years ago,” Rodriguez said.
Next, the scientists used simulations to understand how a crater of similar dimensions to Buhl’s might have formed. If an asteroid encountered strong Earth resistance, it should be about 5.6 miles (9 kilometers) across, unleashing energy equivalent to 13 million megatons of TNT; If the asteroid encountered weak Earth resistance, it could be just 1.8 miles (3 kilometers) wide, releasing the energy of 500,000 megatons of TNT. (By comparison, the most powerful nuclear bomb ever tested, Russia’s Tsar Bomba, had a yield of just 57 megatons of TNT.)
Both simulated collisions generated a giant wave up to 930 miles (1,500 km) from the impact site, more than enough to reach the Viking 1 landing site. The initially huge wave probably extended to a height of about 1,640 feet (500 meters) and was about 820 feet (250 feet) high. meters) on the ground. These stats would make the Pohl effect similar to the Chicxulub effect: previous work suggested that the impact hit about 650 feet (200 m) below sea level, forming a crater about 60 miles (100 km) wide and triggering a tsunami about 650 feet (200 m) high on Earth.
In the future, Rodriguez said, researchers want to further investigate how the ancient Martian ocean changed between megatsunamis to see what potential biological implications this change might have.
“Immediately after its formation, the crater would have generated underwater hydrothermal systems lasting for tens of thousands of years, providing energy and nutrient-rich environments,” Rodriguez said. statement.
The search is described in paper (Opens in a new tab) Published Thursday (December 1) in the journal Scientific Reports.
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