NASA's Space InSight spacecraft probe detected and measured what scientists believe was a marsquake earthquake, this being the first time a potential seismic motion has been recorded on a planet other than Terra, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) experts in California announced on Tuesday, according to Agerpres
The discovery takes place almost five months after InSight, the first spacecraft specially designed to study the work of the depths of this planet, has reached the bluff of the "Red Planet" within a seismological mission that will last for two years.
The low intensity noise, characterized by JPL scientists as a possible earthquake on Mars, the approximate equivalent of a terrestrial earthquake of magnitude 2.5, was recorded on April 6, the 128th Martian Day - days on Mars are also known as '' soil '' - since InSight is on the 'Red Planet'.
The signal was detected by the French seismometer on the probe, a sufficiently sensitive instrument to measure a seismic wave with a radius of half that of a hydrogen atom.
"We have recorded background noise so far, but this first event officially inaugurates a new field of research: Martian seismology," said Bruce Banerdt, principal investigator within the InSight team.
Scientists still examine the information gathered to accurately determine the exact cause of the signal, but the movement appears to come from within the planet, not being the effect of surface forces such as the wind.
"The high-frequency and broad-spectrum level is very similar to what happens in the event of a crack. So we are very confident that this is a marsquake, "said Philippe Lognonné, professor of geophysics and planetary sciences at Paris Diderot University in France, and senior researcher in the team that produced the seismometer used in the InSight mission.
However, such a low seismic production in South California would be lost and would go unnoticed among the dozens of seismic movements that occur every day.
"Our grounded assumption is that this small event occurred at a relatively small distance, possibly 50-100 kilometers distant from the well," said Bruce Banerdt.
A more distant seism would provide more information about the interior of Mars, as seismic waves "would penetrate deeper into the planet before returning to the seismometer," he said.
Intensity and duration of Mars earthquakes fall into the profile of thousands of moon-earthquake detected in the 1969-1977 seismometer on Earth's natural satellite within NASA's Apollo missions, Lori Glaze said of the planetary science department at NASA headquarters in Washington.
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| Photo sent by Insight, a few minutes after weaning, with a camera installed on the upper arm. Photo: NASA |
Martian and Martian surfaces are extremely quiet compared to Terra, experiencing a constant low-level seismic noise produced by oceans and weather phenomena, as well as earthquakes that occur along the underground cliffs created by the movement of tectonic plates in the bark land.
On the Moon and Mars there are no tectonic plates, the seismic activity produced on the two celestial bodies being determined by a cooling and contraction process that causes the accumulation of energy until it becomes strong enough to crack the bark.
Three other apparent seismic signals were detected by the InSight probe on March 14, April 10 and April 11, but smaller and more unclear, the researchers could not claim that they were really "marsquakes" .
Philippe Lognonne said he expects the InSight probe to detect at some point 50 to 100 times more intense than April 6th.