Mystery of the largest earthquake ever recorded on Mars solved

A mystery on the red planet caught the attention of scientists last year. In May 2022, a 4.7 magnitude earthquake was recorded on Mars, lasting approximately 6 hours..

This was the largest seismic event ever seen on the planet, and it raised some questions. Since there are no tectonic plates like on Earth, what could have caused such a powerful earthquake?

The first hypotheses came from an external event. In this case, the collision of a giant meteorite with the surface of Mars. However, recent discoveries are leading scientists towards a new conclusion. “We still think there is no active plate tectonics on Mars today, so this event was probably caused by the release of stress in the planet’s crust,” said Benjamin Fernando, a physicist and astronomer at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. “These stresses are the result of billions of years of evolution, including different parts of the planet cooling and contracting at varying rates,” he added.

The new hypothesis emerged after an extensive search to find traces of the meteorite that were never found. In addition to the Rover, the vehicle used by NASA to collect samples and examine areas on Mars, the operation also involved the cooperation of teams from India, China, the European Union and the United Arab Emirates.

No waste and With no sign of a dust cloud, the idea that an external object caused the earthquake had to be discarded..

Seismic activity on the red planet

This new hypothesis put forward by the researchers caused new questions to arise. How do earthquakes on Mars actually work? So what could explain this stress release at the surface?

Although more research is still needed to truly understand what’s going on, the red planet’s temperature and size conditions lead scientists to rule out the possibility of tectonic activity in line with Earth.

On our planet, huge boulders under the oceans are moved by magma forces found on Earth that can cause landslides as we know them.

Time will tell how the stress accumulated over billions of years is released and whether it will work. To explain the rest of the 1,300 seismic activities recorded on Mars since 2018.

What is the real magnitude of the earthquake?

The magnitude of an earthquake is measured using the Richter scale, a logarithmic scale that can measure the energy released by a seismic shock. It classifies events with a score, usually between 0 and 10.

To give you an idea, the largest earthquake ever recorded on Earth occurred in Chile in 1960. The earthquake, whose magnitude was 9.5 on the Richter scale, killed thousands of people, injured millions and left behind a huge trail of destruction.

Earthquakes with magnitudes between 4 and 5 are considered mild earthquakes, but they can already cause minor damage to objects inside buildings without major structural problems. For this reason, Although it is the largest earthquake ever recorded on Mars, it may be considered common on Earth, with thousands of them recorded each year..

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