NASA has officially detected 'marsquakes’ on the Red Planet
The InSight lander’s seismometer sits directly on the ground, feeling the Red Planet’s reverberations. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/)Like many seismologists, Bruce Banerdt checks his email every morning for the latest quake report. Unlike others, however, he fervently hopes that the “big one” has finally hit. That’s because the information in his daily briefing comes from an entirely different planet, where “marsquakes” pose no threat to human lives or infrastructure. If a big one does come along, traveling straight through the planet and shaking NASA’s InSight Lander on the surface, it will bring nothing but good news to the researchers seeking a window into Mars’s insides. The InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) probe landed on Mars in November of 2018, and its suite of instruments, which includes an exquisitely sensitive seismometer as well as magnetic field and weather sensors, has been monitoring the Red Planet’s various rumbles and hums...