Moonquakes

I sometimes hear about moonquakes and marsquakes…
What are they exactly? Are they trigered by the same mechanisms as earthquakes?
What do we know about them?

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I’m not too sure how #moonquakes work… but I’ve just learn that you can now get access to mars quakes !
it’s here Mars Seismic Catalogues - SEIS / Mars InSight

it’s based on a seismometer that NASA has been operating since 2019!

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Does this has anything to do with the fact that the moon cycle could cause earthquakes ?

Your video is one way to generate very small moonquakes. Wish I could try it!
My understanding is that the Moon and Mars do not have plate tectonics and so that mechanism(s) for quake generation does not apply. What they do have is plenty of meteor strikes and these will generate quakes in accordance with their size / angle of strike / composition of the meteor and the target rocks. We also know that both the Moon and Mars have volcanism on a very large scale (and on a smaller scale associated with meteor strikes). The movement of very large amounts of magma generates quakes on Earth, so presumably does on the Moon / Mars too? Finally, there may be a planetary scale fracturing of crustal rocks due to the cooling and contracting of the bodies in the absence of plate tectonics - I think this has been suggested for Mercury, but may apply to other rocky planets / moons - given the vertical displacement and faulting associated with this, I would guess it could cause some pretty big quakes, maybe on a scale with big plate tectonic quakes on Earth? I am now off to look at the marsquake info linked by the reply below - NASA must have some moonquake data too, as at least one of the Apollo missions set up a seismometer there too! Still not quite the same as experiencing a moonquake directly unfortunately, ah well…

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Thank you so much for all these explanations DAC!
I also wish I could go see overthere what’s going on :crescent_moon: :waning_gibbous_moon: :waxing_crescent_moon:

Some news about #marsquakes for those of you who are interested :What's Mars made of? | EurekAlert!

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and recently one or two particularly large marsquakes have been reported on the NASA Mars Facebook pages. Apparently they have allowed further refinement of the internal structure of Mars, still limited by the fact we only have one seisometer on the whole planet and apparently it’s batteries are running low due to dust on the solar panels! :frowning:

Yes indeed ! Here are some safety tips for martians :alien:

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I think I get it, although my French is tres poor, vraiment désolé!
Trouble is there isn’t much room under Curiosity or Perserverance, unless the locals are very small? :slight_smile:

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