The Mystery Of The Strongest Earthquake On Mars Ever Detected By InSight

InSight lander who recorded the longest and strongest earthquake on Mars (photo: dock. NASA)

JAKARTA Since the end of 2022, the Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) is no longer used to explore Mars.

Although the pride of the United States Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) has passed away, one of its findings is still being discussed today. This finding relates to the earthquake record that InSight had recorded.

On May 4 last year, InSight recorded the strongest and longest earthquake ever on the Red Planet. This earthquake was 4.7 on the RICHer scale, five times stronger than the previous record in 2021.

Usually, the Martian earthquake only occurs for up to an hour, but this record records a different time. This strongest earthquake continued for up to six hours. With the duration of this earthquake, scientists began to find out the cause.

During his four years of carrying out his mission on Mars, InSight has recorded more than 1,300 earthquakes on Mars. Eight of them occur due to asteroids, including earthquakes with the strongest record.

Initially, scientists concluded that it was because of the signal they received. The earthquake signal they got was similar to the signal when Mars was hit by an asteroid.

To ascertain the truth of this signal, scientists began searching for a new crater 300 meters wide and a clump of dust commonly created after the asteroid hit the mainland of Mars.

The entire team was deployed at that time, even teams from various countries intervened. Several countries that participated in searching for the crater were India, China, Europe, and Arabia.

Although they have been searching for months using their respective orbiters, this crater has never been found. Scientists began to doubt the catch of a signal similar to the asteroid's impact.

Therefore, scientists released their final conclusions regarding the strongest earthquake record on Mars. They concluded that the earthquake did not occur because of an asteroid, but because of tectonics.