Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff Lauren boge obamb here. Ever, since NASA's
Speaker 1: Inside mission placed its dome shape sizemometer onto the dusty
Speaker 1: Martian surface in December, hopes were high that the robotic
Speaker 1: lander would quickly detect its first Martian quake or Mars quake. Well,
Speaker 1: the weight is finally over. The mission Seismic Experiment for
Speaker 1: Interior Structure or SIZE, confirmed its first faint rumble coming
Speaker 1: from the inside of the red planet on April six,
Speaker 1: confirming that Mars is seismically active. SIZE team lead Philip
Speaker 1: Lognan said in a NASA's statement, We've been waiting for
Speaker 1: months for a signal like this. It's so exciting to
Speaker 1: finally have proof that Mars is still seizemically active. We're
Speaker 1: looking forward to sharing detailed results once we've had a
Speaker 1: chance to analyze them. NASA hopes to use seismic signals
Speaker 1: like these to give Mars a health check of sorts,
Speaker 1: like a doctor placing a stethoscope on their patient's chest.
Speaker 1: Inside is doing something similar. It's trying to hear what
Speaker 1: makes the planet tick. On Earth. The cacophony of seismic
Speaker 1: signals bouncing around our planet's interior become distorted as they
Speaker 1: encounter regions of different densities. By measuring these seismic waves,
Speaker 1: we've learned about the different unreachable layers deep inside our planet.
Speaker 1: Mars's interior is something of an enigma. The planet doesn't
Speaker 1: have a global magnetic field for reasons we have yet
Speaker 1: to fully understand, and its volcanic activity was extinguished hundreds
Speaker 1: of billions of years ago. If the planet is geologically
Speaker 1: or more accurate, areologically dead? How can it produce Mars
Speaker 1: quakes at all? It's thought that as the planet continues
Speaker 1: to cool, it's shrinking and crack leg with small quakes
Speaker 1: that echo throughout the Martian interior. Mission scientists also want
Speaker 1: to listen out for meteorite impacts will produce their own
Speaker 1: mini trembles, perhaps turning Insight into a real time meteorite detector.
Speaker 1: Until now, Mars quakes were theoretical possibility, but now that
Speaker 1: we know that they're there, they can be used by
Speaker 1: Insight to understand what lies beneath the planet's surface. According
Speaker 1: to mission scientists, this first Mars is a pip squeak,
Speaker 1: nothing like the tremors you're used to if you've ever
Speaker 1: lived in southern California. On Mars, however, this weak quake
Speaker 1: stands out in the comparative silence of Mars's quiet innards.
Speaker 1: Other weaker seismic signals have also been heard over the
Speaker 1: past month or so, but their origins are more ambiguous.
Speaker 1: Although the April sixth event was too weak to be
Speaker 1: used to gain much information about the Martian interior, scientists
Speaker 1: are excited as we've seen something like it before on
Speaker 1: the Moon. During the Apollo program, astronauts placed five seizemometers
Speaker 1: on the lunar surface, which detected thousands of moonquakes between
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine and nineteen seventy seven. These seismic waves
Speaker 1: helped scientists learn about the lunar interior and even helped
Speaker 1: model its formation. Although inside is just one seizemometer on Mars,
Speaker 1: scientists hope that it will give us a window into
Speaker 1: the mysterious Martian interior that we know so little about.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by Ian O'Neil and produced by
Speaker 1: Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is a production I Heart Radio's
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works from on this and lots of other
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