During its time on Mars, NASA’s InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) lander recorded over 1,300 seismic events, known as marsquakes. Of these, a number were identified as coming from meteoroid impact cratering events on the planet’s surface. The largest event identified by InSight, labeled S1222a, bore some similarities to two large impact events recorded earlier in the mission. In order to investigate whether the S1222a event might also have been caused by an impact event, planetary scientists from the University of Oxford and elsewhere undertook a comprehensive search of the region in which the S1222a marsquake occurred. The researchers did not identify any fresh craters in the area, implying that the marsquake was likely caused by geological processes.
On May 4, 2022, InSight recorded the seismic waves from an event on Mars of magnitude 4.7.
This event, labeled S1222a in the catalog, was the largest of the mission and displayed characteristics spanning all previously identified marsquake families. The event also displayed clear evidence of surface waves.
Because its seismic signal was similar to previous quakes known to be caused by meteoroid impacts, the InSight team believed that S1222a might have been caused by an impact as well, and launched an international search for a fresh crater.
Although Mars is smaller than Earth, it has a similar land surface area because it has no oceans.
In order to survey this huge amount of ground (144 million km2), University of Oxford researcher Benjamin Fernando and colleagues sought contributions from ESA, the Chinese National Space Agency, the Indian Space Research Organisation, and the United Arab Emirates Space Agency.
This is thought to be the first time that all missions in orbit around Mars have collaborated on a single project.
Each group examined data from their satellites orbiting Mars to look for a new crater, or any other tell-tale signature of an impact…
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