Did an asteroid triggered ‘1000 foot-tsunami’ on Mars? Find out here
Recently, many deadly asteroids including 2019 OK, 2019 OD, 2015 HM10, 2019 OE, 2019 NN3, 2019 MB4, 2019 MT2, 2006 QV89, 2016 NO56M, RF12 and others has given a miss to the Earth fortunately. But a recent study on the impact craters found on the surface of red planet, Mars suggests major meteorite impact events' that has caused a mighty 'mega-tsunami'.
The Martian monster wave is believed to swept across the Red Planet roughly 3000 million years ago.
It should be noted that nearly 66 million years ago, an asteroid had hit the Earth which created a 93 mile-wide (150km) crater in what is now the Gulf of Mexico. As soon as the asteroid hit the Earth, it triggered a 100-metre high mega-tsunami. Similarly, an enormous asteroid may have struck Mars just before waves, most-likely colored red due to the copious dust on the surface of Mars, inundated the planet. The research analysed a meteor impact site called Lomonosov, which is 120 kilometres deep, the same height as the estimated depth of the ocean. The author of the study, Francois Costard writes in the paper, "The orientations of the associated lobate deposits - a conspicuous type of landforms called Thumbprint Terrain - suggests that if an impact event triggered the mega‐tsunami, the most likely location of the source crater is within the northern plains regions situated north of Arabia Terra." The researchers analysed a meteor impact site called Lomonosov, and selected 10 complex impact craters, based on their diameters, location, and geomorphic characteristics. Of those, Lomonosov crater, which is around 120 km in diameter, exhibits a unique topographic plan view asymmetry when compared to other similar‐sized and similar‐aged craters in the northern plains such as Micoud, Korolev, and Milankovic. Scientists think that this impact site must have been the ground zero for the mega-tsunami that would have spawned across the surface of the Mars, as it strongly resembles the marine impact sites on Earth.