Mars is quite shaky, and now we have more proof. A seismic event recorded on our neighbor planet is now the greatest ever detected, with a magnitude of 4.7.
Five times stronger than the InSight lander’s previous greatest earthquake on Mars (about 4.2), the recent Marsquake registered is quite the deal. Also, what’s more curious is that InSight succeeded in recording the waves for about 10 hours!
Check out all the incredible facts below.
The Greatest Seismic Event on Mars: First Details
On Sol 1222 of the InSight mission, a marsquake occurred.
As a result of a buildup of dust on its solar arrays that provide electricity, NASA has stated that InSight only has a few weeks to live before it stops operating.
COOL FACT: a sol is one day on the Red Planet and lasts approximately 40 minutes longer than a day here on Earth.
And there’s more.
The fact that the epicenter of the seismic event in May was far from recognized activity hubs made it uncommon. But what’s more curious is that the core showed traits similar to two types of marsquakes that have been identified so far: the low-frequency one with a bigger amplitude and the high-frequency one with quick but shorter vibrations.
The energy released by this single Marsquake is equivalent to the cumulative energy from all other Marsquakes we’ve seen so far; […] the event was over 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) distant, the waves recorded at InSight, were so large they almost saturated our seismometer, explained John Clinton, a seismologist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich.
InSight was launched in May 2018 and touched down on Mars in late November. Data into Mars’ crust, mantle, and core are being learned by recording Marsquakes, which are waves moving through the planet. That means the lander’s mission is one of the most significant ones scientists came up with!