Coming soon, a seismometer on Mars

Insight, standing for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, is a NASA funded mission to place a single geophysical robotic lander on Mars. The lander is planned for launch on March 2016 and will be equiped with a seismometer and a heat flow probe. The main objective of this mission will be to study Mars’ deep interior and early geological evolution bringing a better understanding of the Solar System’s terrestrial planets and their evolutionary process. The seismometer will help determine whether there is any seismic activity in Mars as well as the size, thickness, density, velocity and overall structure of Mars’ crust, mantle and core. The seismometer is a broad-band instrument and is designed to detect sources such as quakes but also seismic ambient noise generated by atmospheric excitation and tidal forces from Mars’ satellite. However if any seismic activity is recorded, its source won’t be located because at least three seismometers are needed to locate the source of a quake. So besides the obvious answer of cost, I was wondering why they don’t plan on sending more seismometers. Would anyone have an idea ?

You can find more information on this topic on the NASA webpage dedicated to this mission : http://insight.jpl.nasa.gov/home.cfm

6 thoughts on “Coming soon, a seismometer on Mars

  1. Thamer

    That is interesting, having a station is great for initiating our understanding for the internal structure of Mars. However, Mars topography doesn’t suggest a tectonic activities!!

  2. Kyle A Homman

    Nice Rhiannon! I was going to say I’m not that familiar with single station location methods but I do know they exist. I was going to start looking through some papers to find a good one to link. We considered looking into those methods for my research (if it becomes necessary).

  3. Rhiannon Elizabeth Vieceli

    For more information: Insight webpage (http://insight.jpl.nasa.gov/home.cfm)
    I also found a webpage that shows a picture of how they plan to get the devices from the spacecraft to the planet’s surface (http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=pia19144).

    Maeva, here’s a paper that may help answer your question to Kyle. It also explicitly states that they are sending only one seismometer because of cost: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwk6KVoA9BlRNWlXZXVXSUtiNVU/view?usp=sharing

  4. Austin Laurent White-gaynor

    I agree with Kyle, weight is probably the biggest issue. Maybe once smaller, lighter seismometers are available they could scatter them prior to landing (Sridhar’s geopebbles for example).

  5. Maeva Pourpoint Post author

    Do you have more information about these single-station location methods?

  6. Kyle A Homman

    Very neat stuff! There are single-station location methods. They may not be ideal but I’d say they are better than nothing. Cost would probably be one of the biggest factors in sending more seismometers but I bet weight is another huge issue. This could also be a trial or ‘proof of concept’ and there will be more to come in coming years.

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