After combing through earlier data, scientists confirmed three other impacts had occurred on May 27, 2020, February 18, 2021 and August 31, 2021.
NASA's InSight lander has detected sounds of the impact of four rocks crashing on Mars in the years 2020 and 2021. The impact took place 85-290 kilometers away from the location of the lander.
"The first of the four confirmed meteoroids – the term used for space rocks before they hit the ground – made the most dramatic entrance: It entered Mars’ atmosphere on Sept. 5, 2021, exploding into at least three shards that each left a crater behind....Then, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter flew over the estimated impact site to confirm the location. The orbiter used its black-and-white Context Camera to reveal three darkened spots on the surface. After locating these spots, the orbiter’s team used the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera, or HiRISE, to get a color close-up of the craters (the meteoroid could have left additional craters in the surface, but they would be too small to see in HiRISE’s images)," NASA said in a statement.
After combing through earlier data, scientists confirmed three other impacts had occurred on May 27, 2020, February 18, 2021 and August 31, 2021.
InSight`s seismometer has detected over 1,300 marsquakes.
Provided by France`s space agency, the instrument is so sensitive that it can detect seismic waves from thousands of miles away.
"But the September 5, 2021, event marks the first time an impact was confirmed as the cause of such waves," said NASA.
The sound of a meteoroid striking Mars - created from data recorded by NASA`s InSight lander - is like a "bloop" due to a peculiar atmospheric effect.
The four meteoroid impacts confirmed so far produced small quakes with a magnitude of no more than 2.0.
But the impacts will be critical to refining Mars` timeline.
"Impacts are the clocks of the solar system," said the paper`s lead author Raphael Garcia. "We need to know the impact rate today to estimate the age of different surfaces."
Scientists can approximate the age of a planet`s surface by counting its impact craters: The more they see, the older the surface.
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