Behold the Weird Physics of Double-Impact Asteroids

Dinosaurs were found to have been killed 66 million years ago by an asteroid. If two asteroids hit at the same time, what would happen?

The phenomenon on Mars is investigated in a study. Researchers have found hundreds of craters that may have been caused by the impacts of a pair of asteroids.

The study's lead author says it's hard to find them. The findings show that there are two craters.

As Galileo traveled to Jupiter in 1993, it made the first discovery of a pair of asteroids. Mission scientists were shocked to find a second asteroid nearby while they were taking pictures of Ida. Harrison Agrusa is an astronomer at the University of Maryland who was not involved in the study. People were wondering if the camera was malfunctioning.

That wasn't it. Ida was the first to show that asteroids can travel in pairs. Dactyl was a proof of their existence. Agrusa says that it set off a wave in the community.

Scientists estimate that around 16 percent of the asteroids in the solar system are part of a system. Didymos and its small companion, Dimorphos, are the targets of a NASA and European Space Agency asteroid defense mission later this year.

It would be expected that asteroids would also hit planets and moons. There are many other craters on our moon and it can be difficult to find a pair. It is more difficult on Earth as geological processes erase evidence.

There are two smaller craters in Sweden called Mlingen and Lockne, which are the best candidates for a pair of craters. According to Jens Orm from the Astrobiology Center in Spain, the structures were formed at the same time 450 million years ago. The location of the craters on the border between Russia and Ukraine makes them difficult to study.

craters on Mars can be seen for billions of years High-resolution images of the surface of Mars were used to look for crater pairs.

There were 150 pairs that appeared to be the result of a single impact. A pair of crater shapes would be expected following a collision of two asteroids. There are tear-drop craters, peanut craters, and doublet craters, where there is a gap between the two craters. The position of the two asteroids at impact affects the orientation of the two craters.