Mars has a rare triple crater that has just been discovered by astronomers.

Mars has suffered multiple collisions with wandering asteroids and comets over its lifetime which spans over 4.6 billion years. Its surface is now filled with more than 43,000 collision craters larger than 5 km. Some of the surface areas have experienced more collisions than other areas.

Rare triple crater on Mars

Astronomers have now come across a unique series of three craters with overlapping basins in the Martian location of Noachis Terra. It is an area of ​​highlands that saw several impacts about 4 billion years ago. This rare triple crater looks like a Venn diagram and is not as massive as other craters that span around 140km in width. The smallest crater in the triple crater as a whole, however, measures an impressive 28 km in width. The largest in the triple crater offers 45 km more in width.

How this triple crater came about is a mystery to astronomers. They believe that the asteroid or comet responsible for the crater may have fragmented into 3 parts before making contact with the nearby surface. Different examples of this breaking approach do not show such clear definitions, nor are they so perfectly covered. Double and triple craters are rare but not unheard of. They are also found on Mars and Earth, but not all of them are formed similarly.

How the mysterious crater was formed

In 2015, astronomers found an identical crater to Elysium Planitia near the equator of the Red Planet. The team assumed that it formed due to the fragmentation of an asteroid within the atmosphere or due to a smaller asteroid circling a larger binary set of asteroids. In 2017, a long depression from the triple crater was identified by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. It was thought to be formed from the three fragments of the asteroid hissing in the immediate vicinity.

A press release from the European Space Agency states: “Another theory could be the occurrence of various focuses as expected, three separate cosmic entities could have hit the surface of Mars in this place, creating a perfect overlap of wells by total coincidence. “. Given how vigorously this part of Mars was besieged, scientists say this is the most likely explanation, despite the fact that it’s not quite that intriguing.

Like several craters in the room, this triple crater shows straightened edges and shallow floors from the mileage of time. Part of its footprints even proposes an icy mass like a stream, which may have softened the dirt below, constantly filling the space as the ice softened.