"What's shaking Mars? An Overview of NASA's InSight Mission"
Dr Anna Horleston, University of Bristol
Talk Description
NASA’s InSight lander deployed the first seismic station to the surface of Mars in 2018. The dataset collected over the next four years took us on a journey of discovery – from tiny quakes close to the lander to quakes on the opposite side of the planet; meteorite impacts and dust devils; solar panel shaking and hammering. We saw it all! In this talk I’ll take you through the highs and lows of the mission as it unfolded in the seismic dataset: from launch to final transmission through deployment of the seismometer, first quake detection, determination of the size of Mars’ core, meteorite detection, core composition, surface waves, the biggest quake observed, and the last quake recorded. We’ll discover how one seismometer expanded our understanding of the composition and evolution of the red planet, look at some amazing images, and wonder what else we might uncover.
Our Speaker
Anna is a planetary seismologist at the University of Bristol. She’s had a varied career working across many Earth-based seismic disciplines from instrument management and deployment all over the world to baseline monitoring of UK fracking sites as well as a stint in industry doing near-surface geophysical surveys. From 2018 she worked as part of the Science Team for NASA’s InSight mission to Mars, co-leading the MarsQuake Service from 2020 onwards. She is now a UK Space Agency Fellow continuing to work with the data from Mars, preparing for the landing of the Farside Seismic Suite on the Moon and exploring the options for seismic monitoring of Venus.