Are there earthquakes on other planets?

Arabia Weather - When we think about other planets in the solar system and outside it, we wonder whether there are earthquakes like the ones we know on planet Earth, and this question can be interesting, as it opens the door to exploring unfamiliar worlds and completely new conditions, and while we know Earthquakes are a common phenomenon on Earth, and are linked to the movement of continental plates. This issue seems to come with complex challenges when we move to other planets. In this article, we will explore the possibility of earthquakes occurring on other planets and the factors affecting them.

Lunar earthquakes... How do we deal with other worlds?

Listening to the frequencies and echoes emanating from within distant planets such as Mars and the Moon can shed light on secrets hidden deep within these mysterious worlds, and thus can contribute to increasing our understanding of how planet Earth was formed.

Here on the surface of the Earth, we witness and witness the consequences of the movement of the Earth's crustal plates under our feet, as these plates collide with each other to generate earthquakes, and produce seismic waves that reverberate through the layers of rocks and minerals in the depths of our planet.

Scientists can monitor these seismic waves using a variety of instruments, which enables them to detect even the smallest vibrations passing through the Earth's crust and core. Studying the changing behavior of these waves as they pass deep into the Earth reveals details about what lies deep within the planet, far from our eyes.

However, Earth is not the only place in the solar system that experiences seismic activity. The Moon also suffers from earthquakes, although their causes are different from those that occur here on Earth. Thanks to the presence of seismic locators spread across the surface of the Moon and eventually on Mars, researchers can explore parts of The interior of these distant worlds.

The results show that although the outer surface of the Earth and the Moon appear distinctly different, beneath the surface scientists are discovering more in common than they might have expected, with some notable differences between them.

Lunar earthquakes

Lunarquakes, as they are known on the Moon, are caused by meteorites colliding with the Moon's surface or by the effect of Earth's gravity, which compresses and expands the Moon's interior in a manner similar to the effect of the Moon's tidal waves on Earth's oceans.

As the moon's interior cools, it also causes the moon to shrink and contract like a raisin, causing other earthquakes such as bending and cracking of the crust. Heat from the sun can also produce thermal earthquakes; Due to the difference in temperatures in the lunar crust.

Five seismometers were installed on the moon's surface, and were left by astronauts during the Apollo missions between 1969 and 1972. The first lunar seismometer was developed by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Apollo 11 mission. After installing the device, Aldrin made a historic step on the surface of the moon to verify the operation of the device, as the device recorded the waves produced by his step.

The other four seismic instruments were installed on subsequent missions, and remained operational until 1977, five years after the last Apollo astronauts landed on the moon. However, some 43 years later, scientists are still analyzing their data.

The SeisMo project is one of the projects that recently reanalyzed this data. Regarding this, Dr. Siri Nunn, who works at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California and is the lead scientist on the project, stated:

“We were trying to apply techniques that are commonly used on the surface of the Earth.” He added: "When you connect the noise between stations, you can actually see how the waves travel between them, where the first station is considered a source and the second station is the receiver."

Unfortunately, Dr. Nunn was unable to observe similar patterns in data from the Moon. However, this failure revealed a surprising secret about the Moon: it appears to have no surface waves at all. These surface waves are usually confined to and reflect from the upper layers of rocks. Dr. Nan said:

“This type of wave does not appear to exist on the moon.”

This suggests that the upper layer of the moon's surface could be highly fractured, up to 100 kilometers thick, and this impedes the movement of seismic waves across the surface. Dr. Noon added:

“That fractured layer dramatically changes the behavior of seismic waves.”

Currently, there are no active seismometers on the Moon's surface. However, there are proposals to send new seismometers to the Moon's surface on future missions.

Placing new seismometers on the Moon's surface could provide answers to many outstanding questions, such as why there are such large structural differences between the facing side and the far side. It will be exciting to explore the internal structure. In addition, we would like to determine the thickness of the core. Understanding this aspect can help provide evidence for theories about how these catastrophic impacts at the time of the formation of the Earth and the Moon helped determine the structures we see today.

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Sources:

nasa

europa