A NASA InSight lander on Mars, which is supported by Swindon's UK Space Agency, has recorded 400 ‘marsquakes’ in the first year of its mission.
The seismic vibrations were detected by a set of silicon sensors developed in the UK for InSight’s Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure.
Imperial College London, Oxford University and STFC RAL Space worked in partnership, with £4 million in funding from the UK Space Agency, to develop three sensors which are sensitive enough to detect motion at sub-atomic scales.
The mission is the first to look beneath the Martian surface and detected the first ever recorded Marsquake on April 6 2019.
By the end of last year it was detecting an average of two quakes every day. The findings suggest that Mars experiences quakes more often but more mildly than expected.
Science minister Amanda Solloway said: “Detecting hundreds of marsquakes on a planet 140 million miles from Earth using sensors developed in the UK, is an important achievement.”
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