Mars suffered one of the biggest meteoroid strikes and NASA's InSight felt that one

Mars, in 2021, experienced one of the largest meteoroid strikes ever since NASA began planetary exploration. Luckily for us, the InSight lander, which is at the final stage of its life, has gathered seismic data of the event which shook the planet. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) too took pictures of the crater carved by the meteoroid which excavated boulder-size chunks of ice buried closer to the Martian equator than ever found before. NASA says that this discovery has implications for its plans to send astronauts to the red planet in the future.  

According to the agency, the signals were detected by InSight on December 24 last year on the 1,094th Martian day of its mission and the signals have now been translated into sounds available in the video below.

Scientists estimate that the meteoroid striking the Martian surface measured 16 to 39 feet (5 to 12 meters). While it would have burned up in Earth’s atmosphere, the thin atmosphere of Mars, which is 1% as dense as our planet’s, allowed it to reach the surface as it was.

The space rock crashed into a region called Amazonis Planitia. The impact carved a crater measuring around 492 feet (150 meters) across and 70 feet (21 meters) deep and the resulting ejecta flew as far as 37 km away. Documentation of the event now reveals that this might be one of the biggest craters ever witnessed forming anywhere in our solar system. NASA clarified that there are larger craters on Mars but they are old and predate all of its missions. 

“It’s unprecedented to find a fresh impact of this size,” Ingrid Daubar of Brown University, who leads InSight’s Impact Science Working Group said in an official statement. “It’s an exciting moment in geologic history”.

In the images beamed back by the MRO’s HiRISE camera, large chunks of water ice are seen scattered near the crash site. This discovery, per NASA, is a significant one as this is the first time buried water ice has been spotted near the Martian equator. This has made the location an appealing one as astronauts could use the water for utilisation during their stay.