Gigantic Quake Recorded on Mars Was as Powerful as All Others Combined

There was a record-breaking earthquake on Mars in May of this year that was at least five times larger than the previous record.

It wasn't clear what the source of the earthquake was. The most powerful earthquake ever recorded on Mars shook the red planet for ten hours.

John Clinton of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Switzerland said that the energy released by the single marsquake was equivalent to the cumulative energy from all other marsquakes.

The new analysis of the earthquake was published in a journal. A magnitude 4.2 earthquake was recorded in August of 2021.

The most powerful earthquake ever recorded tipped a magnitude of around 9.5 and that might not sound like a big earthquake. It's impressive for a planet that had been thought to be inactive until NASA started recording its interior.

There are some important differences between Mars and Earth. Mars doesn't have a coherent, global magnetic field, which is often seen as a sign that there isn't much happening in the interior of the planet.

Mars isn't as quiet as we've been led to believe. It creaks and rumbles, suggesting volcanic activity in the area where the InSight lander is located.

There are other reasons to monitor marsquakes. Density variations in the interior of a planet can be revealed by the way seismic waves travel through the surface. The structure of the planet can be reconstructed using them.

Scientists have been able to create a map of the Martian interior thanks to hundreds of earthquakes recorded by InSight.

It appears that the May earthquake was an important one.

Clinton says surface waves, moving along the crust and upper mantle, have traveled around the planet multiple times.

In two other papers, teams of scientists have analyzed the waves to try to understand the structure of the crust on Mars.

There is still more to be done on the earthquake. It was not traced to any surface features in the region. It's possible that it's related to something hidden beneath the surface.

marsquakes have either a high or a low Frequency, the former being characterized by quick, short tremors and the latter by longer, deeper waves. The researchers don't know why this earthquake combined the two frequencies. It is1-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-6556

It could mean that scientists need to rethink how they understand and analyze marsquakes.

The biggest marsquake that we have seen was this one.

Don't forget to keep an eye out for more exciting things following this.

The research has appeared in a journal.