NASA's InSight lander records largest martian quake

OXFORD: NASA's InSight lander has recorded vibrations similar to earthquakes. According to the lander, Mars was shaken for six hours on May 4, 2022.The tremors, which were recorded at 4.7 intensity are enough to break the windows of buildings on Earth. However, there is no way to know the effect on Mars. This is the strongest earthquake ever recorded on an extraterrestrial planet.

The details are now known after a year-long study by Dr Benjamin Fernando's team was published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

The initial conclusion was that a giant meteorite impact may have caused the Martian quake. Scientists have now discovered that pressure flows in the outer shell (crust) of Mars are the cause.

Mars has also been rocked by meteor impacts. It has similar seismic signals. A crater must have formed if the meteor hit. The surface of Mars is about 14.4 million square kilometres. The entire surface was surveyed to find the crater. Various international Mars probes were part of the mission however no new crater was found.

Mars is not so calm

The Earth's outer crust is made up of tectonic plates that are constantly being displaced. Earthquakes occur when this displacement is intense. The outer mantle of Mars, on the other hand, is a single layer. Therefore, it is believed that the process of movement of the earth's layers (plate tectonics) that causes earthquakes is not present on Mars. However, the shaking of Mars indicates that Mars is not so calm. Over billions of years of evolution, many parts of the planet have been uniformly cold and compact. This created a pressure difference. It is this pressure flow that causes vibration.

The epicentre of the Martian earthquake was tens of kilometres deep in the Al Khowahira Valley region of the southern hemisphere of Mars. The InSight rover recorded the Martian quake from a distance of 2000 km from here. During its four-year lifetime, InSight's seismometer recorded 1,319 Martian earthquakes. All of these together created a new vibration that was many times the energy released.

S1222a that shook Mars

In 2018, InSight recorded the 1222nd-day Martian tremor, named S1222a. A 4.2 magnitude earthquake was recorded on August 25, 2021.The study of Martian earthquakes is crucial as NASA and Elon Musk plan human missions to Mars.