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55 million kilometers away, the probe sent back data that monitored 500 earthquakes on Mars

500 earthquakes monitored on Mars

By C NiecyPublished 2 years ago 4 min read
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The closest distance between Mars and Earth is more than 55 million kilometers, and the farthest is 400 million kilometers, which seems very distant, but currently, there are already many rovers operating on the surface of Mars, in addition to the three new rovers that arrived on Mars this year, there are also the Curiosity rover and the Insight rover to probe on the surface of Mars. Among them, the Insight rover was launched on May 5, 2018, and successfully landed on the surface of Mars on November 26, 2018, this rover is the first rover used by our humans to explore the interior world of Mars, which can probe the size, composition and physical state of the Martian core, geological formations, and also detect the temperature and seismic activity inside Mars. Since landing on Mars, the Insight rover has repeatedly monitored the occurrence of earthquakes on Mars.

500 earthquakes detected on Mars

At the annual meeting of the Seismological Society of America 2021, researchers presented the findings of the Insight rover, which monitored nearly 500 earthquakes on Mars throughout the year, with a maximum magnitude of 3.6, a magnitude that still seems relatively weak. Scientists have analyzed the seismic data from Insight and found that there are 2 different types of earthquakes on Mars: high-frequency earthquakes, and low-frequency earthquakes, where high-frequency waves will propagate around Mars in regions of the planet and last longer, while low-frequency waves will mainly propagate within the Martian mantle and will soon disappear. Scientists also found that all earthquakes with seismic phase arrival patterns on Mars originate in the same region of Mars, Cerberus Fossae, which is about 1,800 kilometers away from the Insight rover.

Although earthquakes also occur on Earth, the mechanism of earthquakes on Earth is different from that of earthquakes on Mars. The cause of earthquakes on Earth is due to the collision and compression of Earth's tectonic plates on each other, while Mars does not have similar tectonic plates, so earthquakes occur on Mars for different reasons. Moreover, it is more difficult to monitor weak earthquakes on Mars, because it will be affected by many factors, such as the cable material of the rover will also thermal expand and contract due to the temperature change on Mars, and finally, it will also affect the monitoring of earthquakes by the rover.

What happened to the Insight rover

What made the Insight rover famous was perhaps not its success, but its failure. The Insight rover carried the Mole probe, which was planned to be inserted into the subsurface of Mars to probe the subsurface of Mars, but in the process of drilling into the surface of Mars, the Mole probe failed. However, in the process of drilling into the surface of Mars, the "mole" probe was once stuck in the subsurface of Mars. Although after several attempts, but still can not complete the task, and finally NASA had to let the "mole" probe end the mission early. The "mole" probe can not successfully penetrate the subsurface of Mars, for the Insight rover, the ability to explore the subsurface will indeed be affected to some extent.

In addition to the failure of the mole probe, the current Insight rover has also encountered bigger problems. Earlier in the year, Mars experienced dust storm weather, causing the planet's sky to look gray and cloudy. The Insight rover is equipped with solar panels, which are mainly powered by solar energy, and when the Martian sky becomes gray, the amount of sunlight that can reach the surface of Mars is greatly reduced. The most important thing is that the dust brought by the sandstorm will also cover the insight rover's solar panels, resulting in the insight can not be better charged, and the energy obtained being greatly reduced. NASA's science report pointed out that the current insight rover solar panels fly to only 27% of the design probability, so NASA also let the insight rover into an energy-saving state.

If Mars' dust storm weather continues, the Insight rover is getting dustier and dustier, which could lead to it not having enough energy to get through the cold weather and could end up losing contact. Previously the Opportunity Mars rover had encountered severe dust storm weather and eventually lost contact.

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C Niecy

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