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Consistent Asteroid Collisions Rock Previous Thinking on Mars Impact Craters - SciTechDaily
Jan 22, 2022 1 min, 36 secs

New Curtin University research has confirmed the frequency of asteroid collisions that formed impact craters on Mars has been consistent over the past 600 million years.

New Curtin University research has confirmed the frequency of asteroid collisions that formed impact craters on Mars has been consistent over the past 600 million years.

The study, published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, analyzed the formation of more than 500 large Martian craters using a crater detection algorithm previously developed at Curtin, which automatically counts the visible impact craters from a high-resolution image.

Despite previous studies suggesting spikes in the frequency of asteroid collisions, lead researcher Dr.

The formation age of this 40km crater has been estimated using the number of small craters accumulated around it since the impact occurred.

Lagain said counting impact craters on a planetary surface was the only way to accurately date geological events, such as canyons, rivers, and volcanoes, and to predict when, and how big, future collisions would be.

“The crater detection algorithm provides us with a thorough understanding of the formation of impact craters including their size and quantity, and the timing and frequency of the asteroid collisions that made them.”.

Past studies had suggested that there was a spike in the timing and frequency of asteroid collisions due to the production of debris, Dr.

“Our study shows it is unlikely that debris resulted in any changes to the formation of impact craters on planetary surfaces.”.

“The formation of thousands of lunar craters can now be dated automatically, and their formation frequency analyzed at a higher resolution to investigate their evolution,” Professor Benedix said.

Reference: “Has the impact flux of small and large asteroids varied through time on Mars, the Earth and the Moon?” by Anthony Lagain, Mikhail Kreslavsky, David Baratoux, Yebo Liu, Hadrien Devillepoix, Philip Bland, Gretchen K.

Doucet and Konstantinos Servis, 7 January 2022, Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

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