Searching for Distant Secondary Craters

A 150-meter diameter impact crater formed on Mars on 24 December 2021 (see ESP_073077_2155). This is likely the largest new crater to have formed on Mars during the era of frequent spacecraft imaging.

Seismic effects of the impact were detected by the far-off InSight lander, and the crater itself was first spotted by the Context Camera onboard MRO. This crater created its own field of "secondary" craters from material thrown out by the initial impact. These can be recognized by their dark markings that fade over a few years time.

HiRISE has been imaging this field of secondaries, working outwards to see how far away they formed. This image, around 20 kilometers from the primary impact, has only a few such secondaries and must be approaching the outer edge of the field, especially if we compare with another observation, where they are abundant!

The map is projected here at a scale of 25 centimeters (9.8 inches) per pixel. (The original image scale is 29.8 centimeters [11.7 inches] per pixel [with 1 x 1 binning] to 59.7 centimeters [23.5 inches] per pixel [with 2 x 2 binning].) North is up.

The University of Arizona, in Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., in Boulder, Colorado. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.