Scientists have been listening to whispers from below Mars’ surface. Mars is talking, and the scientists are good listeners. The InSight lander from NASA arrived on Mars in November last year and thanks to it experts monitor and detect Marsquakes on the Red Planet. The first quake the lander detected thanks to its seismometer was not the last one as dozens more made their appearance.
Scientists are getting to know Mars better
What was previously known about the red giant has changed since lander’s touchdown on it. The experts were surprised t see that the seismic waves do not resemble the earthquakes as much as they do the moonquakes, which means the crust of Mars is more broken and dry than expected.
A Mars seismology researcher at ETH Zurich, Simon Stähler, said in a press release that scientists assumed Mars’ crust should not be that different from the one of our planet. Scientists can now get to know the internal structure of the planet after they have realized its quakes are similar to the moon.
Why are Marsquakes important for scientists?
Scientists can get to know the formation process of the rocky planets if they study their seismic activity. For example, the size of the core of the Earth has been calculated by researchers thanks to the tracking of the seismic waves moving through the planet’s interior. Scientists hope that if they read the seismic waves on Mars, they can see what is inside the planet and its changes.
A seismologist on the NASA InSight team, Mark Panning, told Business Insider that they get details thanks to seismology. The Earth shakes because its crust’s tectonic plates are clashing at fault lines. As Mars does not give tectonic plates, scientists think it quakes because of a constant internal-cooling process.
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