NASA’s InSight Mars lander recently detected a couple of sizable „marsquakes“ caused not by tectonic plates but by volcanic activity.
NASA’s InSight lander has detected a couple of sizable quakes on Mars, with magnitude 3.3 and 3.1 tremors last month offering further evidence that the location, Cerberus Fossae, is prone to seismic activity. InSight has been on the Martian surface since 2018, and early on in its mission detected two other significant so-called “marsquakes” in the same area, with magnitudes of 3.6 and 3.5. These aren’t the first tremors recorded by InSight. In fact, so far the lander has recorded more than 500 marsquakes, but the four referenced above are of particular interest to scientists because of their relatively large size. Major quakes on Earth are caused by the sudden movement of the tectonic plates that make up its crust. Mars doesn’t have tectonic plates, with its tremors caused instead by volcanic activity.
