We will not have detected any type of life on Mars yet, but the planet has seismic activity. Confirmed: Insight has detected seismic movements, the first direct evidence of Martian earthquakes ( Marsquakes ), the results of which have been published in a series of articles in a special issue of the journal Nature dedicated to our neighboring red planet.
Data from NASA’s Mars InSight lander, which landed in the Elysium Planitia region of Mars on November 26, 2018 (and with a budget of $ 850 million), has detected hundreds of Martian earthquakes in just 10 months. , some (about 20 events) of not inconsiderable magnitudes such as 3 or 4 on the Richter scale (like the one that occurred in La Rioja a few days ago).
Why is discovery important?
Not that scientists were surprised that Mars is seismically active: the main goal of the InSight mission, after all, was to place a seismometer on Mars and explore the depths of the planet thanks to vibrations. But until InSight began to detect these earthquakes, there was no evidence that they existed: we only had the theory. Now we can say that we have proof that Mars is “alive.”
“We are using geophysics to explore the deep interior of Mars. For the first time, we have established that Mars is a seismically active planet ,” said Bruce Banerdt, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and leader of one of the investigations collected by Nature. .
Even having detected earthquakes of magnitude 3 or 4, if we were on Mars, we would not have noticed them, perhaps a small movement, basically because events on Mars occur much deeper under the surface than on Earth. Still, confirming that Mars is seismically active is exciting.
Of course, it is much less active than the Earth (which is considered a planet with high seismic activity) but more than the Moon (which is considered seismically low). It would be somewhere between the two.
Mars has no plate tectonics: what causes earthquakes?
Most earthquakes on Earth are associated with plate tectonics, but on Mars, which does not have plate tectonics, most of these tremors are likely due to the slow cooling of the planet’s interior. “As the planet cools, it contracts and the fragile outer layers fracture,” says Banerdt.
The analysis of the measurements of these Martian earthquakes and heat transport will allow the mission team to build a detailed 3D map of the interior of Mars, as explained by NASA. Additionally, InSight scientists are using radio signals emitted from the lander to track how much Mars wobbles on its axis over time. This information will help determine how large and dense the planet’s core is.
Taken together, the results add to existing evidence suggesting that Mars was once a very different place. Meanwhile, InSight continues to monitor Martian earthquakes. “We now have 450 in our catalog,” says Banerdt. This is just the beginning of the data and secrets that InSight can reveal about the red planet.
Referencia: Journal References:
Banerdt, W.B., Smrekar, S.E., Banfield, D. et al. Initial results from the InSight mission on Mars. Nature Geoscience, 2020; DOI: 10.1038/s41561-020-0544-y
Johnson, C.L., Mittelholz, A., Langlais, B. et al. Crustal and time-varying magnetic fields at the InSight landing site on Mars. Nature Geoscience, 2020; DOI: 10.1038/s41561-020-0537-x
Banfield, D., Spiga, A., Newman, C. et al. The atmosphere of Mars as observed by InSight. Nature Geoscience, 2020; DOI: 10.1038/s41561-020-0534-0
Giardini, D., Lognonné, P., Banerdt, W.B. et al. The seismicity of Mars. Nature Geoscience, 2020; DOI: 10.1038/s41561-020-0539-8
Lognonné, P., Banerdt, W.B., Pike, W.T. et al. Constraints on the shallow elastic and anelastic structure of Mars from InSight seismic data. Nature Geoscience, 2020; DOI: 10.1038/s41561-020-0536-y
Golombek, M., Warner, N.H., Grant, J.A. et al. Geology of the InSight landing site on Mars. Nature Communications, 2020; 11 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-14679-1
