Christmas Eve 'marsquake' rocked Red Planet, left massive crater – and exposed chunks of ice

Saleen Martin, USA TODAY
·3 min read
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Last Christmas Eve, Mars was hit by a meteorite  so large that it blasted a crater that spans 490 feet and is 70 feet deep, NASA announced Thursday.

This isn't the biggest crater to form on Mars, but all others "predate any Mars mission," the space agency  said in a blog post. The impact and crater were documented and discussed in a research report and an accompanying editorial in the Oct. 27 issue of the journal Science.

Scientists believe the meteorite  may have measured 16 to 39 feet wide. Remnants of the impact landed 23 miles away.

The meteorite struck on Dec. 24, 2021, in the Red Planet's Amazonis Planitia region. NASA’s InSight Lander, a robotic explorer, recorded a magnitude 4 "marsquake."

InSight landed in 2018 and since then has detected 1,318 marsquakes. The spacecraft is set to shut down within the next six weeks.

This most recent impact and crater are part of a "marsquake" considered the first ever recorded to have surface waves, or seismic waves that move along the top of a planet’s crust.

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The impact crater was discovered using the black-and-white Context Camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The camera took these before-and-after images of the impact, which occurred Dec. 24, 2021, in a region of Mars called Amazonis Planitia.
The impact crater was discovered using the black-and-white Context Camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The camera took these before-and-after images of the impact, which occurred Dec. 24, 2021, in a region of Mars called Amazonis Planitia.

How was the crater discovered?

Scientists at Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego helped make the discovery after looking at before-and-after images from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, also called MRO.

The team runs two cameras aboard the orbiter: the Context Camera, which provides black-and-white medium-resolution images, and the Mars Color Imager, which makes daily maps of Mars and helps scientists track large-scale weather changes like dust storms.

The team first saw the crater on Feb. 11, 2022. Scientists were taking photos to complement an earlier photograph of the area, said Liliya Posiolova, of the facility's Orbital Science and Operations Group.

"When that image came back, it was so unusual, like we've never seen before," she told USA TODAY. "This dust disturbance area was so large. ... We've kind of been calling it a Guinness record."

The scientists wondered whether the dust disturbance was visible on their color imager camera, so they took a look. That's when they noticed debris, Posiolova said.

She also remembered an email from NASA's InSight mission about a recording of "a large seismic event" on Christmas Eve.

It's the largest seismic event the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission has seen in 16 years, she said.

"We're very lucky," Posiolova said. "The fact that InSight's mission was operating during that time and was able to record this, that makes it that much more special."

The impact crater, formed Dec. 24, 2021, by a meteorite strike in the Amazonis Planitia region of Mars, is about 490 feet across, as seen in this annotated image taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
The impact crater, formed Dec. 24, 2021, by a meteorite strike in the Amazonis Planitia region of Mars, is about 490 feet across, as seen in this annotated image taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

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More recent discoveries from NASA

NASA also reported a large crater in September 2021; it was a bit smaller but is still one of the biggest the MRO has seen, Posiolova said.

The orbiter also captured snapshots of boulder-size blocks of ice at the site. It's the first time buried ice was spotted this close to the Martian equator, the warmest part of Mars.

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NASA says craters help researchers get a better idea of the planet’s geologic timeline. They also reveal below-the-surface materials.

This most recent crater allowed scientists to see large chunks of ice, captured by a high-resolution imaging science experiment camera. 

The ice, researchers say, will be useful for astronauts who visit Mars by giving them a source for drinking water, agriculture and rocket propellant.

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Saleen Martin is a reporter on USA TODAY's NOW team. She is from Norfolk, Virginia – the 757 – and loves all things horror, witches, Christmas, and food. Follow her on Twitter at @Saleen_Martin or email her at sdmartin@usatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NASA records quake on Mars; crater reveals ice, possible water source