If you are as obsessive about T. rex as we’re at CNET, then you definitely rue the day that an asteroid crashed into the Earth some 66 million years in the past, inflicting untold devastation and ending the reign of the dinosaurs. Over the previous few years, researchers have proven that the Chicxulub influence turned the oceans to acid and generated a devastating tsunami that lapped the Earth.

About 3.4 billion years in the past, the identical factor would possibly’ve occurred on Mars. Thankfully, there have been seemingly no alien dinosaurs round to fret about it.

In a examine, revealed within the journal Scientific Stories on Dec. 1, researchers element proof of a collision between Mars and an asteroid that occurred early within the planet’s life. Utilizing geographic data collected by earlier researchers and orbiting spacecraft, the crew recognized the place this asteroid might’ve hit — and the havoc it’d’ve triggered.

The analyses centered on a crater, just lately dubbed Pohl after the acclaimed science fiction author Frederick Pohl, in a area often known as Chryse Planitia, north of the Martian equator. The 69-mile large scar, Pohl, is one in every of many craters within the space, fashioned by impacts from wandering area rocks throughout Mars’ early historical past. 

The realm is especially fascinating. From the air, Chryse Planitia paints a putting image. There are clear outflow channels that’ve led scientists to recommend the area was as soon as dwelling to an ocean. For that purpose, in 1976, NASA despatched its Viking 1 lander to make a house on Mars within the space, touchdown it close to a “shoreline” of types. The Viking orbiters additionally imaged it from the air. The pictures from these spacecraft confirmed some uncommon options — the panorama was way more disturbed and boulder-strewn than anticipated, which led earlier researchers to consider the area might’ve skilled some extraordinarily turbulent occasions previously.

And by turbulent, we imply two “mega tsunamis.” Although the more moderen mega tsunami’s location has been hypothesized, the reason for the sooner tsunami, 3.4 billion years in the past, has remained unknown. 

Through the use of pc simulations the researchers decided {that a} 1.8- to five.6-mile-wide asteroid may’ve created Pohl crater and thus, the raging tsunamis. The dimensions of the asteroid is about two to seven occasions bigger than Phobos, a Martian moon that is anticipated to in the future crash into the floor. 

This asteroid would’ve smashed into the Martian floor by way of shallow waters, about 400 ft deep. Such an influence could be remarkably just like the Chicxulub influence that occurred on Earth 66 million years in the past. In that occasion, the asteroid was believed to be about 6 miles large. It additionally slammed right into a shallow ocean.

The simulation suggests the impactor would’ve crashed into Mars and launched the equal of, oh, maybe 13 million megatons of TNT vitality. Essentially the most highly effective nuclear weapon ever examined, the Tsar Bomba, launched about 56 megatons. This huge influence would’ve created a mega tsunami over 800 ft excessive, nearly 3 times the scale of the Statue of Liberty, that considerably reworked a few of the historical shoreline of the Chryse Planitia ocean.

You’ll be able to see why it might be a troublesome day for a Martian dinosaur.