One of them in question has risen as a record martemoto: one of the largest and longest Martian earthquakes to date, with 4.2 magnitude tremors that lasted almost an hour and a half, according to the US space agency. Although on Earth a 4.2 earthquake on the Richter scale would be considered light, on Mars it is the largest detected so far.
The solar-powered lander’s main scientific instruments are an excavating heat probe and a suite of supersensitive seismometers.
NASA’s InSight lander was able to perform the tremor measurement after efforts to remove dust from its solar panels earlier in the year, keeping the seismometer running. This is the third major earthquake in a month, with a 4.2 and 4.1 magnitude tremor previously detected on the Red Planet on August 25, according to NASA. At the moment, we do not know if Mars has experienced larger earthquakes or simply the InSight module has not been able to detect them.
1,000 days on Mars
InSight celebrated 1,000 days on the Martian planet on September 18, the day on which the tremendous earthquake that occurred about 8,500 kilometers from InSight was recorded, also being the most distant tremor that the lander has detected so far. Scientists are working to identify the source and in which direction the seismic waves traveled.
The other earthquakes took place on August 25, with magnitudes 4.2 and 4.1 respectively.
The analysis of the tremors, as we say, is still ongoing, but scientists are excited about the possibility of learning something new about the interior of the red planet.
“Even after more than two years, Mars seems to have given us something new with these two earthquakes, which have unique characteristics,” said planetary geophysicist Bruce Banerdt of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Thanks to these earthquakes, researchers are being able to map the interior of Mars because, when acoustic waves bounce inside the planet and propagate through materials of different densities, the resulting signals can be decoded to determine what they are and where they are. those materials. It’s one of the ways we also map the interior of the Earth.
Also, the August earthquakes have something in common besides being large: They both occurred during the day, and the signals from the Marsquakes were large enough to rise above any noise caused by the wind . Recording different types of earthquakes and at equally different distances will provide more information about the depth, thickness and mantle of the planet, as well as its molten core.
Not without obstacles
The InSight module has not had it easy on the arid Martian planet. A large amount of dust had accumulated on the solar panels since landing , drastically reducing their power output, so the mission team temporarily turned off several instruments to save power. To remove some of the dust, they had to be creative: They did this by using the lander’s robotic arm to place sand granules on top of the solar panels for the wind to “sweep away” them and carry dust along the way. It was successful.
Now that Mars is getting closer to the Sun once more, the energy is slowly starting to increase.
