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MARS ATMOSPHERE

InSight searches high to see below

Nature Geoscience volume 13, pages 180–181 (2020)Cite this article

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Mars’s newest seismometer needed to separate marsquakes from meteorology. Continuous weather observations to keep it honest are revealing new facets of Mars’s churning atmosphere.

Ideally, a seismometer is sheltered from the weather. However, weather systems can excite surface waves in the shallow subsurface that even sheltered seismometers will detect1. And sheltering a remotely installed seismometer on Mars is difficult; the seismometer brought to Mars in 1976 on Viking Lander 2 was thought to have measured wind far more than marsquakes2. Thus, whether sheltered or not, an accurate assessment of Mars’s seismicity requires continuous monitoring of the meteorological conditions such that the zoo of atmospheric disturbances that may affect a seismometer’s readings can be understood. Writing in Nature Geoscience, Banfield et al.3 describe the remarkable oscillations so far detected by the most precise and frequently observing barometer ever sent to Mars and its accompanying thermometer and anemometer. These measurements will inform us about near-surface Martian weather as much as they will aid in assessments of Mars’s seismicity and interior structure.

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Fig. 1: The InSight lander on Mars.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

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  1. Space Science Institute, Boulder, CO, USA

    Nicholas Heavens

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  1. Nicholas Heavens
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Correspondence to Nicholas Heavens.

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Heavens, N. InSight searches high to see below. Nat. Geosci. 13, 180–181 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-020-0549-6

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