nwojcicka/impact-seismic-source: impact-seismic-source

nwojcicka/impact-seismic-source: impact-seismic-sourcenwojcicka/impact-seismic-source: impact-seismic-source1.0.

nwojcicka/listening-for-landing-SI: listening-for-landing-SI

nwojcicka/listening-for-landing-SI: listening-for-landing-SInwojcicka/listening-for-landing-SI: listening-for-landing-SI1.0.

The seismic moment and seismic efficiency of small impacts on Mars

Since landing in late 2018, the InSight lander has been recording seismic signals on the surface of Mars. Despite nominal pre-landing estimates of 1–3 meteorite impacts detected per Earth year, none have yet been identified seismically. To inform revised detectability estimates, we simulated numerically a suite of small impacts onto Martian regolith and characterized their seismic source properties. For the impactor size and velocity range most relevant for InSight, crater diameters are 1-30 m. We found that in this range scalar seismic moment is 106−1010Nm and increases almost linearly with impact momentum. The ratio of horizontal to vertical seismic moment tensor components is∼1, implying an almost isotropic P-wave source, for vertical impacts. Seismic efficiencies are ∼10−6, dependent on the target crushing strength and impact velocity. Our predictions of relatively low seismic efficiency and seismic moment suggest that meteorite impact de-tectability on Mars is lower than previously assumed. Detection chances are best for impacts forming craters of diameter>10m

Searching for Transients or a Fresh Crater at the Origin of InSight's Largest Marsquake

On May 4, 2022 NASA’s InSight Mars mission recorded its largest marsquake so far, with an estimated magnitude of 4.7 [1]. This event was labelled as S1222a and displayed characteristics spanning all previously identified marsquake families