OREANDA-NEWS. On April 6, the French seismometer SEIS (Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure) registered a quake on Mars for the first time in history. The event was called Sol 128 (by the 128th day of the SEIS mission), and, according to preliminary information from scientists, these were the first rumbles recorded by equipment on the Red planet that were caused by the internal activity of Mars, not by winds or other external causes. The “InSight” Twitter account informed: “Mars, I hear you. I’ve detected some quiet but distinct shaking on #Mars. The faint rumbles appear to have come from the inside of the planet, and are still being studied by my team. Take a listen.”

Bruce Banderdt, the head of the InSight mission, called the fact of detecting quake on Mars a birth of a new discipline, Martian seismology.

Earlier, in March and April, there were registered three weaker signals, which may also be of seismic origin.

Such weak rumbles would be impossible to detect on Earth. The signal is similar to those that were received on the lunar surface during the mission of the manned spacecraft “Apollo” in the XX century.

SEIS was installed on Mars in December 2018 with the help of “InSight” (Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport), a NASA robotic lander  designed to study the deep interior of Mars. In the same month, the American apparatus for the first time transmitted to Earth an audio record with sounds which were heard as a wind-like.