This spectrogram shows the largest earthquake ever discovered on another planet. Calculated at magnitude 5, this earthquake was discovered by NASA’s InSight lander on May 4, 2022, the 1222nd Martian day, or salt, by the mission. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ETH Zurich
NASA’s InSight Mars lander has detected the largest earthquake ever seen on another planet: a magnitude 5 earthquake on May 4, 2022, the 1222nd Martian day or mission salt. This adds to the catalog of more than 1,313 earthquakes that InSight discovered after landing on Mars in November 2018. The largest previously recorded earthquake was approximately 4.2 on the 25 August 2021.
InSight was sent to Mars with a highly sensitive seismometer provided by the French Center National d’Études Spatiales (CNES) to study the deep interior of the planet. As seismic waves pass through or are reflected by material in the crust, mantle, and core of Mars, they change in ways that seismologists can study to determine the depth and composition of these layers. What scientists are learning about the structure of Mars may help them better understand the formation of all rocky worlds, including the Earth and its moon.
A magnitude 5 earthquake is of medium magnitude compared to Earth’s, but is close to the upper limit of what scientists had hoped to see on Mars during the InSight mission. The research team will have to further study this new earthquake before it can provide details such as its location, the nature of its source and what it can tell us about the interior of Mars.
“Since we launched our seismometer in December 2018, we’ve been waiting for the ‘big one,'” said Bruce Bannerd, chief researcher at InSight at NASA’s Southern California Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “This earthquake will certainly provide a view of the planet like no other. Scientists will analyze this data to learn new things about Mars for years to come.
This spectrogram shows the largest earthquake ever discovered on another planet. Calculated at magnitude 5, this earthquake was discovered by NASA’s InSight lander on May 4, 2022, the 1222nd Martian day, or salt, by the mission. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ETH Zurich
The big quake comes when InSight faces new challenges with its solar panels that power the mission. As the location of InSight on Mars enters winter, there is more dust in the air, which reduces the available sunlight. On May 7, 2022, the available energy of the spacecraft fell slightly below the limit, which triggers a safe mode in which the spacecraft stops all but the most important functions. This reaction is designed to protect the lowering device and may reappear when the available power slowly decreases.
This image shows InSight’s dome-shaped wind and heat shield that covers its seismometer, called the Seismic Experiment for Internal Structure or SEIS. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech
After the lander completed its main mission at the end of 2020, meeting its original scientific goals, NASA extended the mission until December 2022.
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Citation: NASA’s InSight records a monstrous earthquake on Mars (2022, May 10), extracted on May 10, 2022 from
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