Just as on Earth an asteroid destroyed existing life 66 million years ago, another asteroid changed the nature of Mars, 3.4 billion years ago. The latter caused a mega tsunami, without knowing if there was life that suffered its effects.
The power of the Martian asteroid, just for comparison, was 232 greater than the most powerful weapon tested on Earth: The Tsar Bomba, or Tsar Bomba.
While the hydrogen bomb detonated by the Soviet Union in 1961 had 56 megatons of TNT energy, the asteroid from Mars was able to generate 13 million megatons.
The research was carried out by scientists led by J. Alexis P. Rodríguez, being published in Scientific Reports magazine.
How was the conclusion reached about the asteroid that crashed into Mars?
To produce the article, the researchers used geographic information collected by other colleagues in the past, as well as spacecraft in orbit. They determined where the rock might have hit and the havoc it would cause.
The point is in the region called Chryse Planitia, north of the Martian equator. It is a crater named Pohl, in honor of the science fiction writer Frederick Pohl, which occupies 111 kilometers wide.
From the air, Chryse Planitia shows clear outflow channels leading scientists to suggest that there was an ocean.
In that area he worked NASA’s Viking 1 lander in 1976, photographing it both on the surface and from the air.
Rodríguez and his colleagues ran several computer simulations, determining that an asteroid 2.8 to 9 kilometers wide crashed on the spot, creating the Pohl crater and the mega tsunami.
What was on Mars before the crash? A surface with shallow water, about 120 meters deep. Was there life? It is not known, but nothing is ruled out.