NASA equipment creates five new craters on Mars

NASA equipment from the Mars 2020 mission has provided unexpected scientific insights after creating five new impact craters on the Martian surface. During the delivery of the Perseverance rover, tungsten ballast devices and cruise stage fragments struck the planet at a speed of 4.7 kilometers per second.

Researchers used data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to identify these impact sites approximately 70 kilometers northwest of Jezero Crater. By analyzing these man-made impact experiments, scientists discovered that the Martian soil is significantly weaker than standard crater-sizing laws predict. The study, published in ‘Geophysical Research Letters’, notes that existing models tend to overestimate crater sizes for this type of impact due to these unexpected terrain properties.