© Arizona State University/Ron Miller
A new study suggests that impacts by comets and asteroids, which both contain organic compounds, are responsible for roughly 30 percent of the organic material found on the martian surface. This artist’s concept (from a proposed but not flown Mars Scout mission) shows the impact of a high-velocity probe similar to a large meteorite
A new study suggests that impacts by comets and asteroids, which both contain organic compounds, are responsible for roughly 30 percent of the organic material found on the martian surface. This artist’s concept (from a proposed but not flown Mars Scout mission) shows the impact of a high-velocity probe similar to a large meteorite
At the time, astronomers suspected that organics were hitchhiking to Mars almost exclusively aboard tiny, interplanetary dust particles (which are incredibly common and cause most meteors here on Earth). But now, just three short years later, new research suggests otherwise.
In a new study set for publication on July 15 in the journal Icarus, an international team of researchers found that about one-third of the organic material on Mars was delivered there by asteroid and comet strikes. To determine this, the researchers created a computer model of the solar system that included hundreds of thousands of asteroids and comets. Then they used Peregrine - a supercomputer at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands - to run multiple simulations.
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