The sound of a meteorite crashing into another planet was never heard before.
A rock hurtling through space crossed the path of a red planet. There was a shock wave through the atmosphere after the meteorite hit the planet.
The meteorite burned up in the atmosphere, but it survived the thin Martian air. craters were created when it splintered into at least three pieces.
Audio of the event was shared by NASA. Listen below.
It's more like a "bloop" than a "bam!" according to science writer Corey Powell.
The impact craters from the meteorite were captured by a NASA satellite.
The craters looked beautiful after three years of waiting to detect an impact.
Since then, scientists have combed through previous data and confirmed three other impacts that took place between 2020 and 2021, ranging in distance from 53 to 180 miles away from the landers. The impact craters from those meteorites were imaged by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
The details of the Mars meteorite strikes were published in a paper.
According to the press release, the study authors suspect that there could be other meteorite impacts hidden in the last four years of seismometer data, because they were so faint.
Since landing on Mars, InSight has detected a few meteorites. The seismometer on the landers shows that the planet has a molten core and a thin, fragmented crust. The collected weather data was picked up by InSight.
The robot isn't going to last long. The landing spot on the Elysium Planitia was not windy. NASA uses gusts of wind to blow the dust off of its robot. There have been very few such events.
Dust is decreasing the landers ability to generate power. It was able to run an electric oven for an hour and 40 minutes. The mission manager said in a May press conference that the oven could only be used for 10 minutes.
According to the press release, NASA engineers believe the landers could run out of power in October and shut it down in January.
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