NASA’s Mars probe, InSight, detected an earthquake at least five times larger than the largest earthquake ever recorded on the Red Planet.
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The magnitude of the earthquake was 4.7 degrees, and it lasted more than four hours and was not like any of the thousands of earthquakes previously detected, according to Russia Today.
It was the largest Martian earthquake previously recorded, with a magnitude of 4.2, which was detected in August 2021.
The Mars earthquake, called S1222a, occurred on May 4, 2022 in an unexpected region of Mars, just outside the tectonically active Cerberus Fossae region.
The quake sent seismic surface waves entirely around the circumference of the planet – the first time they had been seen on Mars.
These seismic waves revealed layers of sedimentary and volcanic rocks in the Red Planet’s crust, which could indicate a previous collision with a massive body, such as a meteor or comet, according to a study published December 14 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
John Clinton, co-author of the study and a seismologist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, said in a statement: “The energy released from this single quake is equivalent to the cumulative energy from all the other Mars quakes we’ve seen so far, even though the event was much further away.” From 1,931 kilometers (1,200 miles) away, the waves recorded in InSight were so large that they nearly filled our seismometers.”