“The energy released by this single Martian earthquake is equivalent to the cumulative energy of all the other Martian earthquakes we have seen so far,” said John Clinton, a seismologist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and co-author of the study. , in a statement from the American Geophysical Union. , which published the research, cited by SpaceMonday (19/12/2022).
“Despite being more than 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) away, the waves recorded on InSight were so large that they nearly filled our seismometers.”
InSight launched in May 2018 and landed on Mars in late November of the same year. Since then, InSight has used its seismometers to detect activity on the Red Planet, which is seismically much quieter than Earth.
Earthquake recording provides new insights into Mars. The movement of the waves across the planet reveals new insights into its crust, mantle and core.
“For the first time we can identify surface waves, traveling along the crust and upper mantle, that have circled the planet several times,” Clinton said.
The earthquake occurred on Sol 1222 by the InSight mission. A sol is one day on Mars and is about 40 minutes longer than a day on Earth.
NASA says InSight will have just a few more weeks to live before it is shut down due to dust buildup on its energy-producing solar panels. The lander was operational well beyond its primary mission duration of two Earth years.
