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Nasa's InSight lander records hundreds of marsquakes on red planet
InSight, which touched down in 2018, proves beyond doubt that Mars is seismically active
Ian Sample Science editor
@iansample
Mon 24 Feb 2020 12.22 EST
The latest robot to land on Mars has felt the ground shake beneath its feet, whirlwinds tear across the surface and sudden blasts of air shoot past like “atmospheric tsunamis”.
The measurements are the first to be released from Nasa’s InSight lander, which touched down in the barren expanse of Elysium Planitia in November 2018 on a mission to investigate the planet’s interior.
Armed with a seismometer sensitive enough to detect vibrations smaller than the width of an atom, InSight recorded 174 marsquakes in its first 10 months, proving beyond doubt that the dust-strewn planet is seismically active. That number has since risen to 450 or so.
Some of the strongest marsquakes have a magnitude of three to four and appear to come from Cerberus Fossae, a region of faults and lava flows 1,000 miles (1,600km) east of the lander. Because the pressure waves bounce around inside the planet, they can reveal crucial details about its internal structure.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/feb/24/nasa-insight-lander-records-hundreds-marsquakes-red-planet
