A great tsunami from an asteroid impact “swept” the planet Mars 3.4 billion years ago

American and European scientists have announced that they have confirmed previous indications of a Martian mega-tsunamiwhich was probably caused when a large asteroid similar to it (Chixulub) crashed into the neighboring planet, whose impact on Earth 65 million years ago led to the extinction of all flightless dinosaurs.

A large asteroid or comet is estimated to have crashed into a shallow ocean in the northern hemisphere Mars before approx 3.4 billion years. The impact is believed to have created the large 110 km diameter Pohl crater visible today.

The researchers, led by Alexis Rodriguez of the Planetary Science Institute in Arizona, who made the relevant publication in the journal Scientific Reports, carefully analyzed maps of the Martian surface created from satellite images. At the same time they did computer simulations of the possible impacts to estimate what kind of impact might have created the Paul Crater and whether it could have caused a huge tsunami.

They were thus led to the assessment that it was probably about asteroids three to nine kilometers in diameter, whose fall released up to 13 million megatons of TNT energy. The energy released by the explosion of the most powerful nuclear bomb on Earth (the so-called “Tsar”) was only 57 megatons of TNT.

Scientists estimate that such an impact on Mars could indeed cause a mega-tsunami that would reach up to 1,500 kilometers from the epicenter of the fall, causing waves up to 250 meters high to reach land. In comparison, its decline Chicxulub in present-day Mexico, according to a recent study, may have created a crater 100 kilometers in diameter and triggered a tsunami up to 200 meters high on land.

RES-EMP

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