Giant tsunamis on the surface of Mars? These would have reshaped the entire surface of the planet, and perhaps even its climate.
The planet Mars has been attracting the attention of researchers and experts for many years because it represents the next big goal of human space exploration. All aspects of the red planet are interesting. Especially his past. A study published in the journal “Scientific Reports” suggests that tsunamis would have ravaged the surface of the planet billions of years ago.
Giant tsunamis on the surface of Mars?
On July 20, 1976, the American space agency (NASA) Viking 1 probe landed on Mars and sent the first snapshot of its surface. A very rocky red landscape that has puzzled scientists ever since. American researchers believe they have finally found the explanation. The probe is believed to have landed on one of the impacts left by an asteroid that hit the surface and fell into the ocean 3.4 billion years ago.
The researchers studied a 110 km crater, called Pohl, located north of the Martian equator. The shock would have caused a huge tsunami. More than 570,000 square kilometers would thus have been flooded, and in fact, largely remodeled. A second, a few million years later, would have collided with a frozen ocean, creating waves of ice and mud that invaded the land.
These would have reshaped the entire surface of the planet, and perhaps even its climate
According to the researchers’ simulations, theasteroid would have released an energy of 13 million megatons. For comparison, the weapon nuclear the most powerful ever tested, the Tsar Bomba, was around 57 megatons. These hypotheses would also be corroborated by the corridors dug by the waves, which drew the contours of fields strewn with rocks and craters. They were once filled with water.
The impact of this asteroid could also have had consequences on the climate of the red planet. With such a release of skin vapor in the atmosphere, there could have been rain or snow, who knows. But the researchers are not drawing any definitive conclusions, as the scientific community is not yet fully convinced of the existence of an ocean north of the red planet. To be continued !