Largest Marsquake Ever Recorded by InSight and It Could Be The Lander's Last Big One

Planetary scientists have waited years for NASA's InSight to record a "big" Marsquake, but it might have come as the lander runs out of time (and sun).

Rocky Planet iconRocky Planet
By Erik Klemetti
May 26, 2022 7:45 PMMay 26, 2022 7:46 PM
InSight on Mars
A shot of the dust-covered solar panel on NASA's InSight Lander, April 24, 2022. Credit: NASA.

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Time is running out for NASA's InSight lander on Mars. The plucky mission that landed on the red planet in late November 2018 and since then (with a few hiccups), it has been diligently recording seismic activity. The primary goals of InSight were to better understand how geologically active Mars might be and map out the planet's interior. By that measure, InSight was a massive success. Yet, it is the Martian dust that swirls in the air and settles on InSight's solar panels that is bringing it all to an end.

The realm of extraterrestrial seismology is a small place. The only objects in our solar system where we have put seismometers to measure quakes are the Moon and Mars. The Moon hosted working seismometers from 1969 to 1977. During that time they recorded thousands over that 8 year span.

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