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Scientists think big impact caused two-faced Mars
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-06-26 09:39 "The shape is really one of the key pieces of evidence that it was probably formed in a giant impact," said MIT postdoctoral researcher Jeffrey Andrews-Hanna, whose original "gut feeling" favored the other theory. A separate group led by the California Institute of Technology developed 3-D simulations to determine the "sweet spot" of conditions that would form the basin. According to their calculations, a 1,000-mile-wide object traveling at more than 13,000 miles per hour - or 24 times faster than a jetliner - would hit Mars at an angle between 30 and 60 degrees. The collision would be equal to an explosion of 75 trillion to 150 trillion megatons of TNT. In the third study, a team of researchers led by the University of California, Santa Cruz, found that shock waves from such an impact would disrupt the southern crust. All three teams believe there was a single giant blow and not several small hits because there's no evidence of other basins. |
