The number density of impact craters on a planetary surface is used to determine its age, which requires a model for the production rate of craters of different sizes. On Mars, however, estimates of the production rate of small craters (<60 m) from orbital imagery and from extrapolation of lunar impact data do not match. Here we provide a new independent estimate of the impact rate by analysing the seismic events recorded by the seismometer onboard NASA’s InSight lander. Some previously confirmed seismically detected impacts are part of a larger class of marsquakes (very high frequency, VF). Although a non-impact origin cannot be definitively excluded for each VF event, we show that the VF class as a whole is plausibly caused by meteorite impacts. We use an empirical scaling relationship to convert between seismic moment and crater diameter. Applying area and time corrections to derive a global impact rate, we find that 280–360 craters >8 m diameter are formed globally per year, consistent with previously published chronology model rates and above the rates derived from freshly imaged craters. Our work shows that seismology is an effective tool for determining meteoroid impact rates and complements other methods such as orbital imaging.

行星表面撞击坑的数量密度可用于确定其年龄，这需要针对不同尺寸陨石坑的产生率建立模型。然而，在火星上，根据轨道图像和月球撞击数据推断得出的小陨石坑（<60米）产生率的估计并不相符。在这里，我们通过分析 NASA 洞察号着陆器上的地震仪记录的地震事件，提供了对撞击率的新独立估计。一些先前证实的地震检测到的撞击是更大类别的火星地震（甚高频，VF）的一部分。尽管不能明确排除每个 VF 事件的非撞击起源，但我们表明 VF 类作为一个整体似乎是由陨石撞击引起的。我们使用经验比例关系在地震矩和火山口直径之间进行转换。应用面积和时间校正来得出全球撞击率，我们发现全球每年形成 280-360 个直径 >8 米的陨石坑，与之前发布的年代学模型速率一致，并且高于新成像陨石坑得出的速率。我们的工作表明，地震学是确定流星体撞击率的有效工具，并补充了轨道成像等其他方法。