NASA tracks a great earthquake that lasted almost an hour and a half in Mars
On September 18, the year 2021, the landing module that bends by name Insight de Mars, belonging to NASA celebrated in a very cheerful way its Martian day number 1,000, measuring one of the greatest earthquakes ever registered in all its work time. This earthquake, besides being one of the most durable that the mission has detected.
It was known that the tremor had a magnitude of approximately 4.2 and that had an extension of almost an hour and a half. This is recognized as the third large earthquake that Insight has detected this month, since the August 25 this year, the mission seismometer came to detect two earthquakes of magnitude 4, 2 and 4.1 respectively. As a comparison, what we know as an earthquake of magnitude 4.2 has five times the energy of those who own the previous record of the mission, which was an earthquake of magnitude 3.7 detected in 2019.
This mission is studying the seismic waves of said planet, in order to understand a little more on the interior of the planet Mars. Likewise, it is known that waves change as they travel through that crust, towards the mantle and also in the core of the planet, which provides scientists a different but unique way to look deeply below said surface. All we can learn from this phenomenon, will help us to shed light, on the way in which all the rock worlds, including our beloved land and its moon, behave and coexist as reported by the NASA.
It is possible that the seismic activity we have registered on the Plant Mars, could not be detected correctly if the mission had not taken some specific measures at the beginning of this year, since this way of orbiting is highly elliptical, but Mars He pulled a little further away from the sun. Therefore, the lowest temperatures forced all the team belonging to the spacecraft, he must depend on his heaters to be able to be hot; that added to the accumulation of dust that exists within the solar panels of the Insight, has reduced considerable levels that exist the power levels Inside the landing module, which required the mission to keep as a temporary amount of energy, some instruments with which it is carried out there.
However, during this period, the team managed to maintain on part of the seismological elements, adopting a focus contrary to intuition, they already used the robotic arm of Insight, so they can drain part of the sand near a solar panel, with the only one Reason for Hope and that Wind bursts will help take them through the panel. The plan came to work and throughout several cleaning activities, the team saw that these energy levels manage to be stable.
This event occurred in different regions of Mars
The earthquake on September 18, is still under scientific study, since it is known that the Earthquakes of August 25, which was an event of magnitude 4.2 occurred to 8,500 kilometers of Insight, Which qualifies it as the most distant tremor that has been detected so far.
Scientists are currently working on the identification of the source of it, in addition to finding what is the direction with which said seismic waves traveled, however, it is known that the tremor occurred too far for That the same has originated at the site where Insight detected almost the vast majority of previous earthquakes.
However and to the surprise of many of the scientists, the earthquakes occurred on August 25 were recorded as two different types in terms of magnitude and frequency, since one of them, had a magnitude 4.2 and was dominated by various slow vibrations, which were also cataloged as of low frequency. While one who obtained some rapid vibrations of greater frequency, became characterized by the magnitude 4,1 earthquake.
