Meteorite that smashed into Mars shook planet, NASA says

Scientists who study Mars have revealed the remarkable Christmas gift they received from the planet last year.

On Dec. 24, 2021, a meteorite hit Mars' surface, triggering magnitude 4 tremors, which were detected by NASA's InSight spacecraft, which landed on the planet four years ago, some 3,500 kilometers away.

The true origin of this so-called marsquake was only confirmed when the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) was able to take a picture of the newly formed crater created by the hit when it flew over the impact site less than 24 hours later.
The image is impressive, showing blocks of ice that were spewed up onto the planet's surface around the 150-meter wide and 21-meter deep hole.

The crater is the largest ever observed since the MRO began its Mars orbit 16 years ago.
And though meteorite impacts on Mars are not rare, "we never thought we'd see anything that big," Ingrid Daubar, who works on the InSight and MRO missions, told reporters at a press conference on Oct. 27.
Researchers estimate that the meteorite itself would have measured between 16 to 39 feet across. An object of that size would have disintegrated in Earth's atmosphere before falling to the ground here.
"It is simply the biggest meteorite impact on the ground that we have heard since science has been done with seismographs or seismometers," said planetology professor Philippe Lognonne, who participated in two studies related to the observation published in the journal Science on Oct. 27.
NASA released an audio recording of the collision, which was made by speeding up the vibrations collected by the seismometer.

The valuable information gathered in studying the crash will contribute to deeper knowledge of Mars' interior and the history of how the...