Delivery time2023-10-18 06:00
International research team “No traces of meteorite impact that triggered last year’s earthquake… Conclusion of internal force eruption”
(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Lee Joo-young = Research has shown that the cause of the magnitude 4.7 earthquake that occurred in Mars in May 2022 and was recorded as the largest earthquake ever recorded was not a meteorite impact, but an eruption of structural force condensed inside the crust.
NASA’s InSight geological probe covered in Martian dust
[NASA 제공. AP 연합뉴스 자료사진. 재판매 및 DB 금지]
An international joint research team led by Professor Benjamin Fernando of Oxford University in the UK reported in the scientific journal ‘Geophysical Research Letters’ on the 18th that Mars exploration projects around the world jointly explored the surface of Mars, but found no traces of meteorite impacts that could cause strong earthquakes. He said he couldn’t do it.
On May 4 last year, a magnitude 4.7 earthquake occurred in Mars, which continued to tremble for at least six hours, and was captured by NASA’s Mars geological exploration probe InSight, raising questions about the cause of the earthquake.
This earthquake, named ‘S1222a’, was presumed to have been caused by a meteorite impact as it showed a similar pattern to previous earthquakes known to be caused by a meteorite impact, but the magnitude of the earthquake was much larger than previous meteorite impact earthquakes.
The research team began a search to find new impact craters to determine the cause of the earthquake.
Mars is smaller than Earth, but because it does not have oceans, its land surface area is 144 million square kilometers, similar to Earth. In this massive search of the surface of Mars, not only NASA, but also the European Space Agency (ESA), China’s space development agency, the China National Aviation Administration (CNSA), the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), and the United Arab Emirates Space Agency (UAESA) participated.
Seismometer installed by the Mars geological exploration vessel InSight
[NASA/JPL-Caltech 제공. 재판매 및 DB 금지]
Each research group searched for traces of impacts, such as new impact craters or dust clouds that appear several hours after an earthquake, in the rover’s Mars observation data. It is known to be the first time that all of the world’s probes orbiting Mars have collaborated on a single project.
In this paper, the research team stated that they were unable to find a new impact crater that is believed to have caused the strong earthquake during a search that continued for several months.
Instead, it was concluded that the enormous tectonic force condensed inside Mars was released, causing a magnitude 4.7 earthquake. This suggests that seismic activity on Mars is much more active than previously thought.
Dr. Fernando said, “We still believe that there are no active plates on Mars. This earthquake appears to have been caused by the release of forces accumulated over billions of years as the crust evolved, cooling and contracting at different rates in each part.”
“We don’t yet fully know why the force is more concentrated in some areas than others, but this research will help with future investigations.” “It will contribute to understanding the place,” he added.
◆ 출처 : Geophysical Research Letters, , ‘A tectonic origin for the largest marsquake observed by InSight’,
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2023/10/18 06:00 Sent
