It is shown in this paper that five giant impact basins of Mars, Argyre, Hellas, Isidis, Thaumasia, and Utopia, are located on a single great circle. This suggests that the projectiles' orbital planes coincided with the equator of Mars at the time of impact. The projectiles were larger fragments of a heliocentric asteroid that broke apart as it entered the Roche limit of Mars. The mass of the asteroid was at least ∼9.8 × 10 20 kg, ∼1.5 × 10 −3 times the mass of Mars.
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Jafar Arkani‐Hamed (2005) studied this question.
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