
Nasa’s InSight Lander Captures Audio of First Likely ‘Quake’ on Mars - systemfreund
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-insight-lander-captures-audio-of-first-likely-quake-on-mars
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tbabb
Sounds a bit like a rockfall to me, perhaps nearby? The slow buildup and
slower subsidence of the sound intuitively fits what I would expect for a
rockfall, and also we know there are rockfalls on the surface of Mars. It
would be neat if that could be corroborated with surface evidence of a
rockfall (I think a few have even been captured by satellite!)

Impulsive quakes on Earth have a characteristic waveform which this does not
match: The arrival of a compression wave, followed by a larger shear wave.
That waveform wouldn't be much different on another planet, since the shape of
the waveform arises from the mechanical properties of rock. If it were not a
rockfall, it would have to correspond more to a seismic tremor, which happens
more slowly-- I know less about those and I am curious how this matches up.

Having multiple stations would really help to narrow down what the source of
sounds like this could be.

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GrumpyNl
There is no audio on mars, so they generated the sound.

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tbabb
This is recorded from vibrations in rock, not in air. There is some sound in
the very thin Martian atmosphere, and there is plenty of sound in the Martian
crust.

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nphard85
The article states definitively that Mars does not have tectonic plates. This
is news to me because hitherto I thought there is no evidence either way.

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lawlessone
Plate Tectonics seems to require water , lots of water.

[http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2001AGUFM.U21A..09S](http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2001AGUFM.U21A..09S)

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JorgeGT
Much like the Mars probes, the pre-2014 MATLAB color scheme is certainly an
staunch survivor!

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mhuffman
Come on, like Nasa isn't going to use the Jet color scheme ...

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mirimir
Pedantry: "audio of first likely 'quake' on Mars" is unlikely. But "first
likely audio of a 'quake' on Mars", sure.

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bagels
Or "audio of first likey 'quake' on Mars (recorded by this sensor)"

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mirimir
Sure. But that's not in the title.

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foota
"In contrast, Earth’s surface is quivering constantly from seismic noise
created by oceans and weather."

Fascinating, I wouldn't have thought these would be measurable on a large
area's scale.

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est31
This omnipresent seismic noise is also a big challenge for building
terrestrial gravitational wave detectors like LIGO. Even though the noise is
"only" a bunch micrometers of movement, they had to deploy multiple levels of
noise suppression to be able to measure gravitational waves:
[https://youtu.be/j4gE-hSQm68?t=1380](https://youtu.be/j4gE-hSQm68?t=1380)

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NeoBasilisk
Interesting, I didn't know that quakes could still occur without tectonic
activity. The explanation makes sense, but I had just never thought about it.

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rglover
Marsquake.

