A study published online on September 13, 2026, estimates that the Martian ground struck by Perseverance landing hardware near Jezero crater had a local cohesion of 7 ± 1.5 kPa. The figure comes from shock-physics simulations that reproduce the observed crater sizes, and is consistent with regolith—the loose material covering a planetary surface.
What the study estimates about Martian soil
Cohesion describes how strongly particles in a material hold together. In this case, simulations matched to the observed craters point to a cohesion of 7 ± 1.5 kPa for the local impact target. The estimate applies to the studied site, northwest of Jezero crater.
How landing-hardware impacts became a research method
During the 2021 landing, hardware from NASA’s Mars 2020 mission struck a sinuous valley northwest of Jezero crater, where the valley converges into the Jezero delta. Researchers identified two craters made by tungsten cruise ballast mass devices; fragments of the cruise stage also formed craters.
To study the impacts, researchers combined high-resolution orbital images with predicted trajectories to identify the craters. They then used shock-physics simulations to test what target properties could reproduce the observed crater sizes. That approach turned known impacts from a spacecraft landing into clues about the shallow subsurface.
What π-scaling got wrong in this impact regime
π-scaling relations are used to estimate crater size from impact conditions. For the shallow-angle impacts and high density contrast between the projectiles and the ground in this study, those relations overestimated crater diameters by an order of magnitude. The result is specific to that combination of impact conditions.
How deliberate impacts could inform future research
The researchers propose that future missions could deliberately use ballast impacts to investigate shallow subsurface properties on Mars and other planetary bodies.
