NASA's InSight Lander Detects the Biggest Quake on Mars
Seismic waves passing through Martian crust, mantle and core provide invaluable information about their size, composition and structure, enabling a better understanding of the Red Planet's internal structure and past.
NASA's InSight lander landed on the Red Planet in November 2018 and, unlike other Mars rovers, has remained stationary ever since. One of its main tasks is sensing for tremors from the surface with the help of its extremely sensitive seismometer. In nearly three and a half years, the sensitive instrument recorded more than 1,313 marsquakes.
However, none of them compares with the most recent and the largest one, which was observed on May 4, 2022: a magnitude 5 marsquake was detected. This was reported in a press release from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
The previous largest marsquake was recorded in August 2021, reaching a magnitude of 4.2.
Seismic waves passing through Martian crust, mantle and core provide invaluable information about their size, composition and structure, enabling a better understanding of the Red Planet's internal structure and past.