Scientists observe largest Mars-quake ever recorded

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Nasa’s Insight lander has recorded the largest quake ever observed on Mars and any planet other than Earth, a magnitude 5 quake that rumbled the Red Planet on 4 May.

While Nasa scientists are still analyzing the data, the results so far were impressive enough to elicit an excited “wow” from Thomas Zurbuchen, assistant administrator of Nasa’s science directorate, who shared the results on Twitter.

Nasa’s Insight lander has recorded 1,313 quakes since landing on the Red Planet in late 2018, the strongest of which prior to the 4 May tremor was a 4.2 magnitude quake recorded on 25 August 2021. And while a magnitude 5 quake would be considered moderate intensity on Earth, Insight team scientists at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which heads the mission say its near the maximum intensity they expected to find on Mars.

“Since we set our seismometer down in December 2018, we’ve been waiting for ‘the big one,’” Bruce Banerdt, the principal investigator on the Insight team, said in a statement. “This quake is sure to provide a view into the planet like no other. Scientists will be analyzing this data to learn new things about Mars for years to come.”

Equipped with a highly sensitive seismometer engineered by the French Centre National d’Études Spatiales, the Insight lander allows scientists to study the interior structure of the Red Planet.

In July 2021, Insight scientists published results showing that Mars has a larger than expected core, for instance, having used the recordings of Mars quakes to build up a three dimensional picture of what lies beneath the Red Planet’s surface. At the time, scientists publically wished for a larger quake in order to better refine their picture of the internal structure of Mars.

“Fingers crossed, we would love to see some bigger events,” Nasa planetary scientist Mark Panning told the Associated Press in 2021.