In the dust of Mars,
The scars settle
Old wounds on bloody ground.
Dark Void Sky Stones
claim their land,
hitting the withered earth:
tick
tac.
An ear on the chest of the planet
listen to every noise
The replicas
of abyssal assault.
Under the bark,
The arteries are humming:
tick
tac.
The pages of the diary
turned crimson –
numbers carved in silence,
rock against rock.
An aria for him
incessant clash
from the hammer of heaven
over the barren seas:
tick
tac.
This poem is inspired by recent researchwhich has discovered that the rate of meteorite impacts on Mars can help date planetary surfaces.
Scientists typically determine the age of a planet's surface by examining the number of impact craters. This method relies on understanding how frequently craters of different sizes form. On Mars, there has been a discrepancy between estimated rates of small crater formation, derived from both orbital imaging and extrapolated lunar data. These estimates do not agree, leading to uncertainty in the precise dating of Martian surface features.
Recent research has provided new insight by analyzing seismic events recorded by NASA’s InSight lander. Some of these seismic events, previously confirmed as impacts, belong to a broader category of very high-frequency earthquakes. Although not all events can be conclusively attributed to impacts, the researchers suggest that this class is likely caused by meteorite impacts. By converting seismic data to crater sizes using an empirical scaling ratio, they estimated that between 280 and 360 craters larger than 8 meters (26 feet) in diameter form on Mars each year. This rate is consistent with some existing models and higher than rates based on new crater images. This study demonstrates that seismology offers a more direct way to measure meteorite impact rates and could help scientists date planetary surfaces throughout the Solar System more accurately.
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