Scientists from the University of Arizona (USA) participating in NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) mission have calculated that the red planet is bombarded by more than 200 small asteroids or comet fragments each year. These impacts create craters with diameters of at least 3.9 meters wide, which are being studied by experts. In total, the scientists calculate that, in a single year, the impacts affect an area the size of the state of Texas (United States).
Specifically, using images taken with the HiRISE device, researchers have identified 248 relatively recent impacts on the surface of Mars. In the analyzed images you can see how the different areas are before and after the impacts. This combination of photographs offers a new efficient way to measure the impact rate suffered by Mars. And, according to scientists, based on the data obtained, it is possible to suspect that some of the recent changes in its surface could be a consequence of climate change that affects the red planet .
If the same rocky bodies that hit Mars, with diameters of 1 to 2 meters , reached Earth, they would disintegrate before reaching the ground. However, on the neighboring planet they create craters because the Martian atmosphere is "much thinner than Earth's", the authors of the work conclude.
