On Aug. 25, 2021, NASA's InSight lander, which touched down on the Red Planet in 2018, detected a powerful marsquake, designated S0976a. The Martian equivalent of an earthquake reached magnitude 4.2, which, at the time, was the most powerful quake that InSight or any other Mars lander had ever seen. (Since then, a 4.7 magnitude marsquake in May 2022 knocked it off the top spot, but S0976a remains second on this list.)
In the new study, published Oct. 15 in the journal Nature Communications, researchers reanalyzed the seismic wave data of S0976a and found that the quake originated from within a fault line running below the enormous canyon. The most likely explanation, they argue, is that there was tectonic movement in this hidden crustal crack.
S0976a is the second-largest marsquake ever detected by NASA's InSight lander, shown here in a NASA clean room on April 30, 2015. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Lockheed Martin)
Valles Marineris is an enormous set of interconnected gullies and ravines stretching up to 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometers) in length, or roughly 10 times longer than the Grand Canyon. It is also up to 20 times wider and five times deeper, meaning that if you found yourself stranded at the bottom, it could take you a couple of months to climb out again.
These imposing structures are proof that Mars was once geologically active, perhaps even more so than Earth. However, scientists think the Red Planet's surface has remained relatively unchanged for nearly 3 billion years, according to the European Space Agency.
Valles Marineris is almost as long as the continental U.S. is wide. (In this photo, captured by NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter, an optical illusion known as relief inversion may make the canyon appear as if it is raised above the surface, which it is not.) (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU)Despite this, Mars still has fault lines. But rather than being a boundary between tectonic plates, these lines are more like giant cracks in its crust, some of which are visible at the surface.
Signs of tectonic life
The researchers also simulated several other potential causes of the marsquake, including a major asteroid strike or a landslide within the canyon, but nothing else could explain the patterns they saw.
Using seismic wave data captured by InSight, researchers were able to pinpoint the epicenter of the S0976a masquake (represented as a yellow star near the top of this map). (Image credit: NASA/JPL/GSFC/ESA/DLR/FuBerlin/ASU/J Davis)The finding also raises hopes that similar tectonic activity could one day be detected on other worlds across the solar system.
Mapping Martian vibrations
The discovery highlights the importance of detecting and studying marsquakes, which were only officially discovered in 2019, thanks to InSight. (Scientists have since uncovered older marsquakes, using data collected by the Viking landers in the late 1970s.)
InSight sent back a final selfie to Earth on Dec. 19, 2022, showing a heavy coating of Martian dust on its solar panels. Its mission was officially ended two days later. (Image credit: NASA/InSight)RELATED STORIES
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Unfortunately, in December 2022, InSight quite literally bit the dust: A thick covering of Martian powder blocked its solar panels, preventing the lander from returning signals to Earth and thus ending its mission.
Mars quiz: Is your knowledge of the Red Planet out of this world?
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