Americans and Europeans scientists announced that they had confirmed earlier indications martian megatsunamiwhat probably happened when he fell on a neighbor planet a similar large asteroid (Chixulub), whose fall to Earth 65 million years ago led to the extinction of all flightless dinosaurs.

It is estimated that a large asteroid or comet crashed into a shallow ocean in the northern hemisphere of Mars about 3.4 billion years ago. The impact is believed to have created the large 110 km diameter Pol crater that is visible today.

Researchers led by Alexis Rodriguez of the Institute of Planetary Science in Arizona, who made a corresponding publication in the journal Scientific Reports, carefully analyzed maps of the Martian surface created from satellite images. At the same time, they ran computer simulations of possible impacts to assess what kind of impact could create Pola’s crater and whether it could generate a huge tsunami.

Thus, they came to the conclusion that these are probably asteroids with a diameter of three to nine kilometers, the fall of which releases up to 13 million megatons of TNT. The energy released during the explosion of the most powerful nuclear bomb on Earth (the so-called “Tsar”) amounted to only 57 megatons of TNT.

Scientists have calculated that such an impact on Mars could indeed cause a megatsunami that would reach up to 1,500 kilometers from the epicenter of the fall, causing waves up to 250 meters high to reach the ground. In comparison, the fall of Chicxulub in present-day Mexico, according to a recent study, could create a crater 100 kilometers in diameter and cause a tsunami up to 200 meters high on land.

^{According to information from APE – MEB}