New Impacts on Mars: Unraveling Seismic Propagation Paths Through a Cerberus Fossae Impact Detection
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: To date, eight meteoroid impacts have been identified in the seismic record of NASA's InSight mission on Mars, occurring either within 300 km or beyond 3,500 km. We report the association of a high‐frequency marsquake, S0794a, with a new 21.5‐m‐diameter impact crater discovered at an intermediate distance of 1,640 km in the tectonically active Cerberus‐Fossae graben system. This impact enables the direct comparison between surface and subsurface sources, as well as providing the first data point in the critical gap between previous impacts, both in distance and crater size. Additionally, the location of this event necessitates a reassessment of assumed seismic raypaths that were thought to propagate along a slow crustal waveguide. We find that the raypaths instead penetrate and travel through the faster mantle, implying numerous identified marsquake epicenters should be relocated up to two times farther from InSight, with implications for seismically derived impact rates and regional seismicity.
Source: Geophysical Research Letters
DOI: 10.1029/2024gl110159
Institutions: Imperial College London, Johns Hopkins University, Norsar, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Institut de physique du globe de Paris, Université Paris Cité, The Open University, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, University of Bern, Center for Space and Habitability, Natural History Museum, Brown University, University of Bristol, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Language: English
Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,190
OpenAlex ID: W4407102254