2018/03/08 by Kateryna Frantseva, Michael Mueller, I. L. ten Kate +4 · 1 citation
Chemistry · Environmental Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Asteroid #Asteroid belt #Astro and Planetary Science #Astrobiology #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Chemistry #Comet #Ejecta #Flux (metallurgy) #Interplanetary dust cloud #Interplanetary spaceflight #Isotope Analysis in Ecology #Mars Exploration Program #Martian #Near-Earth object #Physics #Planet #Planetary Science and Exploration #Solar System #Solar wind #astro-ph.EP
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2018.03.006
30 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in Icarus
arxiv created 2018/03/08 · openalex publication_date 2018/03/09 · arxiv updated 2018/03/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Given rapid photodissociation and photodegradation, the recently discovered organics in the Martian subsurface and atmosphere were probably delivered in geologically recent times. Possible parent bodies are C-type asteroids, comets, and interplanetary dust particles (IDPs). The dust infall rate was estimated, using different methods, to be between 0.71 and 2.96 × 106 kg/yr (Nesvorny et al., 2011, Borin et al., 2017, Crismani et al., 2017); assuming a carbon content of 10% (Flynn, 1996), this implies an IDP carbon flux of 0.07 - 0.3 × 106 kg/yr. We calculate for the first time the carbon flux from impacts of asteroids and comets. To this end, we perform dynamical simulations of impact rates on Mars. We use the N-body integrator RMVS/Swifter to propagate the Sun and the eight planets from their current positions. We separately add comets and asteroids to the simulations as massless test particles, based on their current orbital elements, yielding Mars impact rates of 4.34×10-3 comets/Myr and 3.3 asteroids/Myr. We estimate the global carbon flux on Mars from cometary impacts to be ∼ 0.013 × 106~kg/yr within an order of magnitude, while asteroids deliver ∼ 0.05 × 106~kg/yr. These values correspond to ∼ 4-19 % and ∼ 17-71 %, respectively, of the IDP-borne carbon flux estimated by Nesvorny et al. 2011, Borin et al. 2017 and Crismani et al. 2017. Unlike the spatially homogeneous IDP infall, impact ejecta are distributed locally, concentrated around the impact site. We find organics from asteroids and comets to dominate over IDP-borne organics at distances up to 150~km from the crater center. Our results may be important for the interpretation of in situ detections of organics on Mars.