--- title: "Scientists Puzzled by Sudden, Super-Loud Rumble Inside Mars" description: "A record shattering tremor on Mars still has scientists uncertain on its origin, after new research ruled out a meteoroid impact." date: "2023-10-18" modified: "2023-10-18" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-puzzled-loud-rumble-inside-mars" categories: - "Astronomy" - "Mars" - "Space" tags: - "insight lander" - "mars" - "the digest" --- # Scientists Puzzled by Sudden, Super-Loud Rumble Inside Mars ![A record shattering tremor on Mars still has scientists uncertain on its origin, after new research ruled out a meteoroid impact.]() *\Image: Getty/Futurism\* ## Captain Shook In May of last year, NASA's Insight Mars lander detected an enormous seismic tremor reverberating just below the planet's surface. At a magnitude 4.7, it's the most powerful ever detected on the Red Planet — and indeed anywhere off world. Ever since, the puzzling "marsquake" has had scientists scrambling for an explanation. Mars has long been considered a geologically "dead" planet, meaning there are few signs of volcanic activity, let alone of the kinds that would rattle the planet like that. Initially, the most likely explanation scientists put forward was that the reverberations could have been caused by a meteoroid impact. But a new study, [published in the journal *Geophysical Research Letters*](), found that after months of scouring the planet's surface, no evidence of a fresh impact has been discovered — meaning the tremendous tremor came from deep within the planet. "We didn't find a crater," lead author Benjamin Fernando at the University of Oxford, [told *Scientific American*](), "which strongly suggests this event was tectonic." ## Stressed Out It would be a hard impact to miss. Anything large enough to send out a record-shattering marsquake after smashing into the surface would blow open a crater hundreds of feet in diameter. That points to some sort of tectonic activity as being the culprit, and adds to an emerging body evidence that Mars' deceased status is [dead wrong](). "We still think that Mars doesn't have any active plate tectonics today, so this event was likely caused by the release of stress within Mars' crust," Fernando said in a [statement]() about the work. "These stresses are the result of billions of years of evolution; including the cooling and shrinking of different parts of the planet at different rates." Most of the data gathered about Mars' seismic activity so far indicates that it's originating from a huge pair of trenches known as the Cerberus Fossae, which are believed to be the open wounds of an underlying fault where magma interactions could still persist. Insight's data on the monster marsquake, however, pinpoints the source of its reverberations as far beyond the faults, to the planet's southeast. It appears that some other mysterious phenomenon is behind the almighty tremor, and for now, scientists will have to see what shakes out. "Clearly there's a massive piece of the tectonic and seismic puzzle that we haven't yet unraveled," Fernando told *SA*. **More on Mars:** *[Amazing Video Soars Over Mars' Epic "Labyrinth of Night"]()* ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()