This One Asteroid Crash on Mars Caused Close to 2 Billion Additional Impact Craters

Amaze Lab

One of the defining characteristics of Mars are its craters. Direct asteroid strikes are no doubt responsible for many of the most famous craters on Mars, but now experts say the aftermath of a single asteroid could be responsible for billions of smaller craters.

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00:00one of the defining characteristics of mars are its craters direct asteroid strikes are

00:08no doubt responsible for many of the most famous craters on mars but now experts say the aftermath

00:13of a single asteroid could be responsible for billions of smaller craters this is the corinto

00:18crater it's one of the youngest on the red planet believed to have only been made around 2.34

00:23million years ago corinto stretches more than eight and a half miles across and is more than

00:28half a mile deep and researchers believe that so much ejecta was displaced from the crater's area

00:33of impact the resulting downfall of that material actually caused many many more smaller craters

00:39that's at least partially because of the impact angle of the asteroid which made it based on

00:43calculations from where the ejecta material was located the asteroid struck mars from the north

00:47at an angle between 30 and 45 degrees the resulting ray of rock and other planetary matter was spread

00:53as far as 1 150 miles away with the researchers finding there are nearly 2 billion additional

00:59impact craters larger than 32 feet in diameter caused by the resulting splash of ejecta this no doubt paints

01:06a new picture with regards to just how intense these impact events can be and likely provides new insights

01:11about how an impact like this might affect our own planet

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