Resonances of the InSight Seismometer on Mars

(InSight) seismometer was deployed to the surface of Mars in December 2018- February 2019. The specific deployment conditions, which are very different from those of a standard broadband instrument on the Earth, result in resonances caused by different parts of the sensor assembly (SA) that are recorded by the seismometer. Here, we present and characterize the resonances known to be present in the SA and their causes to aid interpretation of the seismic signals observed on Mars. Briefly, there are resonances in the SA at about 2.9, 5.3, 9.5, 12, 14, 23-28, and 51 Hz. We discuss various methods and tests that were used to characterize these resonances, and provide evidence for some of them in data collected on Mars. In addition to their relevance for the high frequency analysis of seismic data from InSight, specifically for phase measurements near the resonant frequencies, the tests and observations described here are also of potential use in the further development of planetary seismometers, for example, for Mars, th

Companion guide to the Marsquake Catalog from InSight, Sols 0-478: data content and non-seismic events

The InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) mission landed on the surface of Mars on November 26, 2018. One of the scientific instruments in the payload that is essential to the mission is the SEIS package (Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure) which includes a very broadband and a short period seismometer. More than one year since the landing, SEIS continues to be fully operational and has been collecting an exceptional data set which contains not only the signals of seismic origins, but also noise and artifacts induced by the martian environment, the hardware on the ground that includes the seismic sensors, and the programmed operational activities of the lander . Many of these non-seismic signals will be unfamiliar to the scientific community. In addition, many of these signals have signatures that may resemble seismic events either or both in time and frequency domains. Here, we report our observations of common non-seismic signals as seen during the first 478 sols of the SEIS data, i.e. from landing till the end of March 2020. This manuscript is intended to provide a guide to scientists who use the data recorded on SEIS, detailing the general attributes of the most commonly observed non-seismic features. It will help to clarify the characteristics of the seismic dataset for future research, and to avoid misinterpretations when searching for events