Scientists are seeing some pretty incredible seismic activity on Mars. In fact, researchers in a new study revealed earlier this month they have discovered the two largest marsquakes ever recorded on the martian planet. According to the organization, NASA’s InSight lander captured data of two massive quakes on the far side of the planet, with one quake recording a magnitude of 4.2 and the other finding itself as a magnitude 4.1 marsquake.
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Even the 4.1 quake still finds itself at least five times bigger than the previous record holder.
“Recording events within the core shadow zone is a real steppingstone for our understanding of Mars. Prior to these two events the majority of the seismicity was within about 40 degrees distance of InSight,” study co-author Savas Ceylan said in a press release. “Being within the core shadow, the energy traverses parts of Mars we have never been able to seismologically sample before.”
According to University of Bristol researcher Anna Horleston, the quakes are most certainly outliers when it comes to studying the fourth planet from the sun.
“The latter event has a frequency spectrum much more like a family of events that we observe that have been modeled as shallow, crustal quakes, so this event may have occurred near the surface. S0976a looks like many of the events we have located to Cerberus Fossae – an area of extensive faulting – that have depths modeled to be around 50 kilometers or more and it is likely that this event has a similar, deep, source mechanism,” the researcher said.
She added, “Not only are they the largest and most distant events by a considerable margin, S1000a has a spectrum and duration unlike any other event previously observed. They truly are remarkable events in the Martian seismic catalog.”
NASA’s InSight lander was first launched in May 2018 before landing on the Red Planet later that November. It’s been in an active mission since, and has been approved to continue collecting data through at least December 2022.
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The silhouette of US engineer and NASA astronaut Megan McArthur is seen past the NASA logo in the Webb Auditorium at NASA headquarters in Washington, DC, on June 7, 2022. (Photo by Stefani Reynolds / AFP) (Photo by STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)
