A SINGLE ASTEROID CAUSED TWO BILLION CRATERS ON MARS, SCIENTISTS CLAIM

MAR 16, 8:30 AM EDT
byVICTOR TANGERMANN

Deep Impacts
A team of scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in California have found that a single meteorite was likely responsible for creating not just one, but billions of subsequent craters on the Martian surface.

In addition to the main 2.3 million-year-old crater called Corinto, which spans over 8.6 miles across, the collision created several billion secondary craters by sending up a huge plume of rocks after it hit the surface, New Scientist reports. These rocks then triggered a chain reaction, adding even more craters as they came crashing back down.

By analyzing satellite images, JPL's Matthew Golombek and colleagues estimated the number of craters triggered by the blast and concluded that Corinto had anywhere between 1.3 and 3 billion "secondaries," each of which at least 33 feet across.

The research could help us understand complex geological processes on the surface of Mars and how its landscapes and composition have changed over time — a particularly important area of inquiry, given our efforts to send astronauts there in the near future.

More:
https://futurism.com/the-byte/a-single-asteroid-caused-two-billion-craters-on-mars-scientists-claim