Origins of the water ice excavated by the Christmas Eve crater formation on Mars
OA Location
Author(s)
Wojcicka, N
Collins, GS
Rangarajan, VG
Dundas, CM
Daubar, IJ
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
On the 24th of December 2021, a meteoroid struck the martian surface, producing a 150-m wide crater and excavating the lowest-latitude water ice observed on Mars to date. Knowledge of the preimpact depth, thickness and lateral continuity of the excavated ice would provide new insight into past environmental changes such as temperature and humidity of the atmosphere. In this work, we use the iSALE3D shock physics code to simulate the crater formation and constrain both the impact parameters and the original location of excavated ice. Analysis of the distal ejecta pattern suggests that the impact angle was 20 ± 2.5° from horizontal. Based on a comparison of the simulated and observed crater morphology, we find the preimpact subsurface likely contained a stronger bedrock layer overlain by 15 m thick regolith layer. Our simulation results show that the ejected ice blocks visible in orbital images originated from shallow depths 3.2–11 m and from radii 30–60 m from the crater center. We conclude that the ice most likely originated from a massive ice layer at 3.2–11 m depth. The ice was likely also laterally discontinuous under the preimpact surface.
Date Issued
2025-09-01
Date Acceptance
2025-08-07
Citation
Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, 2025, 130 (9)
ISSN
2169-9097
Publisher
American Geophysical Union
Journal / Book Title
Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets
Volume
130
Issue
9
Copyright Statement
© 2025. The Author(s). This article has been contributed to by U.S. Government employees and their work is in the public domain in the USA. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
License URL
Subjects
DEFORMATION
Geochemistry & Geophysics
impact cratering
impact modeling
IMPACTS
InSight
Mars
Physical Sciences
Science & Technology
water ice
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
e2024JE008875
Date Publish Online
2025-09-15