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NASA may have recorded the very first "marsquake", thanks to its lander InSight.
According to a statement from the government space agency, the lander recorded the signal on Martian soil on April 6, the 128th day of InSight on Mars. This is also the first recorded tremor "that seems to come from the inside of the planet, instead of being caused by forces above the surface, such as the wind."
NASA added that scientists are still studying the data to determine exactly the cause of the signal.
THE INSIGHT OF NASA, MARS LANDER, REVEALS EXCEPTIONAL PHOTOS OF THE RED PLANET
"The Martian Sol 128 event is exciting because its size and longer duration correspond to the profile of earthquakes detected on the lunar surface during Apollo missions," said Lori Glaze, director of the planetary science division at the headquarters of the NASA.
Although the so-called "marsquake" arouses a lot of enthusiasm, the earthquake would not even be noticed on Earth. "An event of this size in Southern California would be lost among dozens of small crunches that occur every day," writes NASA.
This image of the seismometer of InSight was taken on the 110th Martian day of the mission. The seismometer is called the seismic experiment for the inner structure, or SEIS. (Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech)
InSight, which landed safely on the red planet in November after "seven minutes of terror" because of the agency's inability to control the landing of the spacecraft, continues the investigation. Scientific legacy of NASA's Apollo missions (which have detected earthquakes on the moon) Bruce Banerd, principal investigator of InSight. "We have collected the background noise up to now, but this first event officially inaugurates a new field: Martian seismology!" he's excited.
With a cost of $ 828 million, the InSight lander is the space agency's first probe to reach the red planet in six years, after landing the Curiosity rover in August 2012. The unmanned probe, built by Lockheed Martin, will dig deeper into the planet than anything that preceded.
MARS CAN HAVE IMPORTANT WATER QUANTITIES ON THE SURFACE
The InSight mission (indoor exploration using seismic surveys, geodesy and heat transport), managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, will provide scientists with a wealth of data. "The landing will launch a two-year mission in which InSight will become the first spacecraft to study deep inside Mars," NASA explained on its website. "His data will also help scientists understand the formation of all rocky worlds, including ours."
The LG was originally scheduled to take off in March 2016, but NASA has suspended preparations for its launch after the discovery of a vacuum leak in the ship's main scientific instrument.
In February, NASA encountered a problem with InSight after stopping digging, possibly due to the impact of a rock or gravel, a problem that has since been resolved.
James Rogers of Fox News and the Associated Press contributed to this article.
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