NASA’s Insight probe detects largest earthquake on Mars to date

A magnitude 5 earthquake shook the surface of Mars on May 4, the most powerful earthquake ever detected not only on Mars but on any planet other than Earth.

The earthquake, detected by NASA’s Insight probe, surpassed the previous record, a 4.2-magnitude earthquake that occurred in August 2021.

“The NASA InSight team and partners have just received raw data from Mars on what is believed to be the largest seismic activity ever recorded on another planet!” Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA associate administrator for science, said on Twitter. “Raw estimate: event of magnitude 5. Be patient while teams analyze the data.”

From Earth’s perspective, a magnitude 5 earthquake wouldn’t be much of a problem. On our planet, such earthquakes occur half a million times a year and rarely cause serious damage. (They might throw things off shelves and crack windows, according to the Los Angeles Times, and they’ll wake you up at night.)

However, Mars is tectonically quieter, and a magnitude 5 is as strong an earthquake as scientists had hoped when they sent InSight to the Red Planet in 2018.

RELATED: Mars Earthquakes Reveal The Red Planet Has A Surprisingly Thin Core And Crust

A spectrograph showing seismic waves detected on Mars on May 4, 2022, in the most powerful earthquake detected to date. (Image credit: NASA)

“Since we set up our seismometer in December 2018, we’ve been waiting for the ‘biggest,'” Bruce Banerdt, InSight principal investigator at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California who is leading the mission, said in a statement. The planet is unparalleled.”

The team still knows very little about the record-breaking earthquake and will have to analyze the data to determine its location and source.

InSight landed on Elysium Planitia, a broad plain straddling the planet’s equator, on November 26, 2018, equipped with a highly sensitive seismometer made by the French space agency CNES. The tool allows geologists to peek into the planet’s interior by detecting and analyzing seismic waves passing through the geological layers of Mars. By comparing what they see on the Red Planet with what they know about the behavior of seismic waves on Earth, geologists can determine the depth and composition of these layers: the crust, mantle, and core.

During its nearly 1,300 days on Mars, InSight has detected more than 1,313 earthquakes. The initial probe mission officially ended in 2020, but NASA has continued the mission since then.

However, the probe is having trouble harvesting enough solar energy to continue operations. Due to seasonal weather patterns, the amount of dust in the air has increased dramatically since InSight’s arrival, blocking out the sun.

A local dust storm in January returned the spacecraft to safe mode and raised concerns about how long the mission could last. And a few days after its powerful new discovery, on May 7, the spacecraft once again hit dangerously low levels of energy.

Follow Teresa Pultarova on Twitter @TerezaPultarova. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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