On May 4, 2022, the Mars probe NASA insight detected what appears to be the largest earthquake it has ever detected on the planet Mars. This earthquake was at least 5 times more intense than the second on the list of the biggest seismic events on the planet.
According to the data collected by the instruments, the May earthquake had a magnitude of 4.7, which is 5 times more powerful than the August 2021 one. That one had a magnitude of 4.2. Another indication confirming the power of the seismic event in May, the lander continued to detect waves from the earthquake for about 10 hours. Everyone else had stopped sending waves after an hour.
According to John Clinton, seismologist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich and co-author of the study, the energy generated by this single earthquake martian is equivalent to the sum of the energies of all the earthquakes have been detected so far. He added that even though the event happened at a distance of more than 2,000 km, the waves recorded by InSight were so large that they almost saturated the seismometer.
La mission d’InSight
The InSight mission was launched in May 2018. The lander touched down on the surface of Mars in November of the same year. Arriving on the Red Planet, the InSight lander began using its seismometer to detect seismic activity on the planet. Studying earthquakes on Mars provides new information about the latter. the movement of waves across the planet indeed allows learn more about its different layersincluding the crust, mantle and core.
According to Clinton, for the first time they were able to identify surface waves traveling along the crust and upper mantle, which traveled around the planet multiple times.
The characteristics of the May seismic event
Apart from being the strongest Martian earthquake ever detected, the May event was also quite unusual since its epicenter was not near known nodes of activity.
According to the researchers, the quake had also exhibited characteristics of the types of Martian earthquakes known so far. It exhibited high-frequency waves with faster but shorter vibrations, as well as low-frequency waves with higher amplitude.
Today, we know that the lander InSight only has a few weeks left before it shuts down completely due to the dust that has accumulated on its solar panels. However, he has already far exceeded the two years originally planned for his mission.
SOURCE: Space.com