Mars: a massive asteroid tsunami 3.4 billion years ago

American and European scientists announced that they had confirmed previous indications of the existence of a Martian huge tsunamiwhich may have happened when a large asteroid similar to it (Chixulub) collided with the neighboring planet, and whose impact on Earth 65 million years ago led to the extinction of all flightless dinosaurs.

It is estimated that a large asteroid or comet has crashed into a shallow ocean in the northern hemisphere Mars almost before 3.4 billion years. The impact is believed to have created the large 110 km diameter Buhl crater that can be seen today.

The researchers, led by Alexis Rodriguez of the Planetary Science Institute in Arizona, who published the related publication in the journal Scientific Reports, carefully analyzed maps of the Martian surface created from satellite images. At the same time, they ran computer simulations of potential impacts to estimate what kind of impact might have created Paul Crater and whether it triggered a massive tsunami.

Thus, they were directed to the evaluation that he might have been about The diameter of the asteroids is from three to nine kilometers, 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 huge tsunami up to 1,500 kilometers from the center of the fall, causing waves up to 250 meters high to reach land. By comparison, its decline Chicxulub In present-day Mexico, according to a recent study, it may have created a crater 100 km in diameter and triggered tsunamis up to 200 meters high on Earth.

source: RES-EMP

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