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NASA’s Mars probe, InSight, detected an earthquake at least five times larger than the largest earthquake ever recorded on the Red Planet.
The earthquake had a magnitude of 4.7, lasted more than four hours and was unlike any of the thousands of earthquakes previously detected.
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 almost filled our seismometers.”
It is noteworthy that “Insight” is a stationary platform on the surface of Mars, which was launched in May 2018, and landed in the Elysium Planitia region in November 2018.
The probe is equipped with a seismometer to study the Red Planet’s crust, core and core. It was discovered that the Cerberus Fossae region of the planet to the northeast of the rover is the most tectonically active. However, S1222a occurred at 37 degrees southeast of Insight.
“The seismometer aboard the Insight lander recorded thousands of earthquakes, but none of this magnitude, and it took more than three years after landing to record it,” said study author Carolyn Begin, a professor in the Department of Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles. This earthquake generated different types of waves, including two types of waves trapped near the surface.
The earthquake waves lasted about 10 hours, ten times longer than previously detected.
Only one of these two types of waves had been observed on Mars before, and more importantly, it was only after a meteor strike, not during an earthquake.
This historic discovery is likely among Insight’s last discoveries, as dust storms gradually covered the probe’s solar panels, reducing its power to critical levels.
Scientists expect that his work is not expected to continue much after the end of 2022.
Source: Live Science