Researchers have observed seismic waves propagating along the surface of a planet other than Earth for the first time. The marsquakes that resulted from two large meteorites that hit Mars were recorded by NASA’s InSight lander and analyzed at ETH Zurich in collaboration with the InSight Science Team, which includes researchers from the University of Maryland.
Researchers have observed seismic waves propagating along the surface of a planet other than Earth for the first time. The marsquakes that resulted from two large meteorites that hit Mars were recorded by NASA’s InSight lander and analyzed at ETH Zurich in collaboration with the InSight Science Team, which includes researchers from the University of Maryland.
Published in the journal Science on October 27, 2022, the team’s paper provides new insights into the structure of the Martian crust, bringing scientists closer to learning how the planet formed and evolved over time.
“This is the first time seismic surface waves have been observed on a planet other than Earth. Not even the Apollo missions to the moon managed it,” said the study’s lead author, Doyeon Kim. Kim is currently a visiting assistant professor in the UMD Department of Geology and senior assistant at the ETH Institute of Geophysics.
After almost three years of detecting only body waves (seismic waves traveling through the body of a planet) on Mars, the InSight team finally observed surface waves (seismic waves traveling along the surface of a planet) in late December 2021, when two meteorites collided with the red planet. Atypical quake readings led the researchers to suspect the impact sources were near the surface, so they compared the data with information from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
