The Uncomfortable Admission - Impact Events on Planet Mars

SpaceX and Elon Musk keep making the news regularly. People eagerly anticipate an actual Mars mission in the next 5 to 10 years. Even yesterday, a prototype rocket was tested.

However, let's not forget the fact that Mars is much smaller than Earth and also has a much, much thinner atmosphere. As such, impact events are actually much more likely to occur on Mars. We're not talking about the ancient impact events, we're talking about significant impacts which have occurred on Mars in the last few years.

2014 Article - Huge New Mars Crater Found by NASA Spacecraft (Photos)

An eagle-eyed NASA spacecraft has spotted a fresh crater on Mars large enough to cover half of a football field, and it's no puny Martian pockmark. In fact, the crater is the largest new impact site ever seen on the Red Planet using orbiter photos.

NASA's powerful Mars Reconaissance Orbiter captured the photo of the new Martian crater after it suddenly appeared in March 2012. Mission scientists say it is the biggest fresh impact crater scientists have confirmed on any planet by using before-and-after images.

The crater likely was carved by a car-size asteroid in an impact event similar to last year's meteor explosion over Chelyabinsk, Russia, which shattered windows, damaged hundreds of buildings and left more than 1,000 people injured, NASA officials said.

The largest crater is quite shallow and spans 159 feet by 143 feet (48.5 meters by 43.5 meters). It was probably created by an object 10-18 feet (3-5 meters) long, HiRISE Principal Investigator Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona, Tucson estimated. That's less than a third the length of the asteroid that hit Earth's atmosphere near Chelyabinsk. Mars' atmosphere, however, is much thinner than the one surrounding Earth, making the Red Planet more vulnerable to asteroid strikes. A study last year found that Mars likely gets hit with more than 200 asteroids annually.

2019 article - An Exploding Asteroid Blasted Across Mars' Surface in the Last 10 Years

Sometime in the last decade, something heavy slammed into the Martian atmosphere and shattered into a hard rain of superheated material. Those pieces fell to the Red Planet's surface, dotting the Martian dirt with a pattern of pockmarks.

...You know this happened recently on Mars because images of the same region from 2009 don't show the craters, as explained in a statement from the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory.

Astronomers Have Spotted a New Crater on Mars That's Like Nothing They've Ever Seen

Each year Mars is bombarded by more than 200 asteroids and comets, and while some of these leave similar dark smudges or other remarkable features, University of Arizona planetary scientist Veronica Bray told Space.com that this new crater is one of the most impressive she's seen.

...Such a tiny culprit would have probably burned up or eroded in Earth's much thicker atmosphere.

It's all well and good planning and solving the logistics of manned missions to Mars, but the uncomfortable admission here is that any missions (and indeed outposts) are greatly at risk of being destroyed by the many impact events that Mars endures. Planet Earth has barely seen many - if any - significant impact events with little to no loss of life.

a reply to: AnakinWayneII

If you can dodge a meteor, you can dodge a ball.

a reply to: watchitburn

duck, dive, dodge and...

It is also very likely that Mars has more impacts due to it's proximity to Jupiter in comparison to Earth, and the likelyhood that the asteroid belt only exists due to the presence of Jupiter, which without it could have meant that Mar's mass could be much higher, and thus more easily retain it's atmosphere. Now you may say that the main asteroid belt doesn't have significant enough mass to do this, however the current theory is that Jupiter "kicked out" about 99% of the asteroid belt's original mass..

If this were the case Mars would go from 6.39 × 10^23 kg to 9.59 x 10^23 kg. But this isn't the case.

So perhaps the only real reason Mars has more evident collisions is due to it's closer proximity to the asteroid belt as well as its closer proximity to Jupiter that tends to fling the asteroid belt into eccentric orbits and thus collisions, and more so with it's closer neighbors.

However this could all be wrong considering a new theory that was published and is being researched as of late that theorizes a new method / reason for the asteroid belt.
phys.org...

Interestingly the Moon also has a lot more impact events as well, and we have only been actively looking for them since 2005.
www.nasa.gov...


What I find the most interesting is that the lack of atmosphere on Mars could actually prevent close encounters from being a problem, as the atmosphere would less likely catch them, however it does mean that when it does in fact catch them it will be a higher energy event on impact.

Mobile outposts.

Underground bases.

Mobile outposts that emerge from underground bases.

There are work-arounds to be thought up and humans are very creative.

Sadly, going to Mars is a suicide mission, certainly in the referenced time frame. Let's count all the reasons why...

1. The trip to Mars takes 6-9 months, depending on how you go. Let's pretend some folks actually make it to Mars orbit without killing each other along the way. We'll get into the landing in a moment, but let's say there's some development where it is decided that 'Mars Sucks' and everyone just wants to come home. Sorry, Charlie...no dice. They can't just return to Earth. They're stuck there for 26 months until the next Transfer Orbit widow opens up. Have fun orbiting Mars for 2+ years confined in a telephone booth! You see, unlike the Moon, Mars doesn't orbit the Earth; it orbits the Sun, just like Earth does. So, by the time you reach Mars, the Earth is on the other side of the Sun from Mars (or close to it). And, the Earth is traveling 'away' from Mars at a rate faster than any spaceship can go to catch up. So you wait.

2. Okay, so Mars doesn't suck nearly as bad as staying cooped up in this spaceship with all of you stinking bastages! Let's land this Mutha'! Now there's the fact that no craft anywhere near this size has ever successfully landed on Mars. Landing on Mars isn't like landing on the Moon. Unlike the Moon, Mars has an atmosphere, albeit a thin one. This makes for all sorts of challenges de-orbiting and landing. (i.e. parachutes don't work well, but not enough atmosphere to slow down, etc.) I trust they'll get this figured out, but ff I'm not mistaken, all successful landings on Mars so far have been high g-force landings on the order of 20+ g's. That's gonna' leave a mark no matter what they figure out.

3. Okay, so you're on Mars (a little sore, and a broken spine, but you're there...time to shake it off and cowboy up!). Alright, so what do we do first? Let's set up our camp! Oh wait...none of us can walk after being in zero-g's for 9 months! Everyone is a blob of Jello. So everyone is just going to rest for a few...weeks, before they do anything. (We won't even go into the fact that Major Matt crapped his spacesuit 87 times because he can't walk to the toilet.) And who the F# ate two years worth of Cheetos? Captain Mary is about ready to give birth, to 9 children from 4 different fathers, but the "800 Mile High Club" was sure awesome. And Bill, that wretched bastard; his filthy corpse is rotting in the closet. Oh, and everyone's hair is falling out from the lifetime dose of radiation getting to Mars.

Later Lt's Buzzsaw and Mad Max are blasted to infinity by a meteor which streaks out skies and vaporizes them. Good riddance to those two, the necrotic animals!

But somehow some of our brave voyagers manage to survive all of this and soldier on. Two years passes, and it's time to finally get off this Gawd-forsaken rock! Now some of the real fun begins...

4. Two men walked on the Moon, but there was a third on the mission. He stayed behind on a great big flying gas-can called the Command Module which would take them back to Earth. So, on Mars, there's going to need to be an even bigger, an absolutely monstrous, flying gas-can...which has been in orbit this whole time. So, did they leave someone behind to maintain this ship the whole time everyone was busy partying down on Mars? If they did, this poor dude is going to believe he's a pterodactyl with an invisible friend living in McDonald's Playland when the others finally rendezvous with the ship! Half eaten Snickers bars and crayons will be floating all around, and the tampons will all be missing. Major Tom will just be a wild eyed zombie who snorts fiberglass insulation and has a major hydrazine addiction.

So the survivors (they killed that crazy bitch Mary a long time ago, after her spawn ate Lt. Dan), they jettison Major Tom and clean up the joint. Time to head back to Earth. Nine more months passes and all of Earth eagerly awaits the return of the Mars astronauts. The ship approaches Earth...and just whizzes by without a peep.

The End.

a reply to: AnakinWayneII
Here is the photo.

"In the thirteen years that the MRO has been observing Mars, few events have compared. While the actual space rock fragment responsible looks to be about 1.5 metres wide (5 feet), the crater itself is much larger, roughly 15 to 16 metres wide (49 feet to 53 feet)."
The crater you see is about 50 wide, yet NASA won't let us see, in detail, the FACE or THE Pyramids on Mars!
SnF

originally posted by: tjack
Mobile outposts.

Underground bases.

Mobile outposts that emerge from underground bases.

There are work-arounds to be thought up and humans are very creative.

Thanks for posting some sense in this thread.
I have nothing to add

Mars has no oceans. An impact would not cause a tsunami. That's what makes Earth impacts so devastating. You have a 70% chance of an ocean impact causing massive damage along the shores, where all the big cities are. Plus the Earth is heavily populated. Compare that to Mars. You have one little colony with a few buildings. Maybe you even decide to take refuge in known caves. In that situation the liklihood of your tiny colony being impacted by "more frequent" impacts is virtually nil. It's not worth considering.

I have no problem for people finding reasons to not go to Mars. By all means stay home in the comfort of your cozy home and solid (Cough!) infrastructure. Just don't stand in the way of people who want to go for one thing is certain: There will eventually be another ELE (Extinction Level Event) on Earth. That's why becoming an interplanetary species is crucial to human survival. We absolutely must get off this planet as soon as possible, but you individually need not do so.

Maybe they should land and build in one of these recent craters? What are the odds another one will come down in the same place? Also, you can’t plan for every little thing. Sometimes if it’s your time to go it’s your time to go.

originally posted by: schuyler
Mars has no oceans. An impact would not cause a tsunami. That's what makes Earth impacts so devastating. You have a 70% chance of an ocean impact causing massive damage along the shores, where all the big cities are. Plus the Earth is heavily populated. Compare that to Mars. You have one little colony with a few buildings. Maybe you even decide to take refuge in known caves. In that situation the liklihood of your tiny colony being impacted by "more frequent" impacts is virtually nil. It's not worth considering.

I have no problem for people finding reasons to not go to Mars. By all means stay home in the comfort of your cozy home and solid (Cough!) infrastructure. Just don't stand in the way of people who want to go for one thing is certain: There will eventually be another ELE (Extinction Level Event) on Earth. That's why becoming an interplanetary species is crucial to human survival. We absolutely must get off this planet as soon as possible, but you individually need not do so.

This

Spot on



Building underground would be the best approach i think.
Doesn't need to be deep underground either.
It would be difficult and time consuming at first.
But the benefits will eventually pay off: significant mitigation of impacts, radiation and dust storms.

SOL2461 (Curiosity Mission) may have had an impact event, but my contacts with the involved groups have not investigated it with the MRO.

I'm interested in an MRO flyover check. A significantly involved post on 4chan involving 3 navcam images from Curiosity on that day, started off considering some object in the air as a UFO. By the end of the thread, I believe the higher consideration was that the Curiosity navcam may have captured impact debris as it was dispersed into the Martian sky as ejecta.

Easy to cross verify an impact like the one 4chan suspected if we could utilize the seismic data from the insight lander. It seems that data is on a release schedule.

Whenever that data comes out, I'll be looking at it myself. Sure would be neat to cross reference Rover photos, dates, and seismic data to narrow down an impact crater for MRO to look at.

The scarier part is that it was possible, by the odds, if this turns out true.

Any Mars colony will probably have some kind of impact contact if the colony lasts, on the time span of years.
(Especially if the Rover can randomly catch impact events on such a low angle, low resolution camera, during unrelated mission activity.)

Just imagine the sheer energy that is being released when a meteor hits the martian surface , without sufficient air pressure or thick enough atmosphere they just keep on flying till they hit the ground and just vaporize on impact.

Huge rocks , even if they are made from iron they just vaporise on molecular level.

originally posted by: Violater1
a reply to: AnakinWayneII
yet NASA won't let us see, in detail, the FACE or THE Pyramids on Mars!

But they did, with HiRISE MRO images. I personally haven't looked at the pyramids, but I've seen the "Face". It's just an eroded hill. www.uahirise.org...