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Innovative Approaches to Planetary Seismology

Illustration of the NASA InSight lander on the Martian surface
Illustration of the NASA InSight lander on the Martian surface. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

How a KISS workshop helped build the science case for NASA’s InSight Mars lander

About

Seismology is a powerful technique available for probing a planet’s deep interior structure, but applying it to worlds beyond Earth presents enormous technical challenges. In 2010, KISS brought together a multidisciplinary group of scientists and engineers to assess whether new approaches could make planetary seismology feasible across the solar system. The study was co-led by Dave Stevenson (Caltech) and Mark Hofstadter (JPL).

The study assessed the scientific case and technical feasibility of measuring seismicity on a range of planetary bodies, from Mars to the Moon, Venus, and the giant planets. Participants evaluated novel deployment concepts, including balloon-borne sensors, broadband seismometers on landers, and networked geophysical stations, and identified the technology gaps that would need to be closed.

The KISS Connection

The Impact

The KISS study helped consolidate and sharpen the scientific case that would underpin NASA’s selection of the Mars InSight Mission. KISS study participant, Dr. Bruce Banerdt (JPL), went on to become the Principal Investigator for the NASA Mars InSight mission.

Papers produced from the workshop included proposals for Mars geophysical observatory concepts directly relevant to InSight’s design, and contributed to the broader literature on detecting marsquakes, characterizing the Martian crust and mantle, and understanding the planet’s deep interior, all core objectives of the InSight mission.

InSight launched in May 2018 and landed on Elysium Planitia on 26 November 2018. Its SEIS seismometer, developed by CNES and JPL, has recorded over 1,300 marsquakes during its operational life, providing the first direct measurements of the Martian interior and transforming our understanding of the structure of a rocky planet other than Earth.

This really helped crystalize our concept of doing seismology with a single station on a planet… actually doing the real work of seismology for delineating the interior structure. That really helped us to write a proposal that was clear and emphatic in its picture of what we would do with a seismometer on Mars and how we would get the job done. I really have to thank the KISS Institute for that workshop which I think was really kind of a critical piece of our proposal effort and of our scientific endeavor on Mars.

— Dr. Bruce Banerdt, InSight Principal Investigator, JPL — KISS Lecture, February 2023

What KISS Enabled

The study helped seed a community of scientists and engineers focused on planetary seismology that would carry the InSight concept through NASA’s competitive Discovery mission selection process. Key participants in the KISS workshop went on to lead or directly contribute to the InSight science team.

The thread from this KISS study to active lunar and planetary seismology missions continues today. The single-station seismometer on NASA’s Dragonfly mission to Titan also benefits from developments advanced through this KISS study. This study also instigated the application of Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) technology for planetary geophysics, with subsequent KISS technical development supporting lunar applications that have more recently been deployed to Antarctica through the Brinson Exploration Hub.

Key Links

Key Outputs from the Study

Papers

  1. Wu, Wenbo; Zhan, Zhongwen; et al. (2024) Fiber Seismic Network on the Moon; Seismological Research Letters; Vol. 95; No. 4; 2153-2163; 10.1785/0220230067 DOI
  2. Zhan, Zhongwen (2020) Distributed Acoustic Sensing Turns Fiber-Optic Cables into Sensitive Seismic Antennas; Seismological Research Letters; Vol. 91; No. 1; 1-15; 10.1785/0220190112 DOI
  3. Zhang, Baolong; Ni, Sidao; et al. (2018) Constraints on small-scale heterogeneity in the lowermost mantle from observations of near podal PcP precursors; Earth and Planetary Science Letters; Vol. 489; 267-276; 10.1016/j.epsl.2018.01.033 DOI
  4. Dehant, Veronique and Banerdt, Bruce and Lognonne, Philippe et al. (2012) Future Mars geophysical observatories for understanding its internal structure, rotation, and evolution. Planetary and Space Science, 68 (1). pp. 123-145. ISSN 0032-0633. PDF
  5. Mimoun, David and Wieczorek, Mark A. and Alkalai, Leon et al. (2012) Farside explorer: unique science from a mission to the farside of the moon. Experimental Astronomy, 33 (2-3). pp. 529-585. ISSN 0922-6435. PDF
  6. Tsai, Victor C. (2011) Understanding the amplitudes of noise correlation measurements. Journal of Geophysical Research B, 116 (B9). Art. No. B09311. ISSN 0148-0227. PDF
  7. Neal, Clive R. and Banerdt, W. Bruce and Alkalai, Leon (2011) Lunette: A Two-Lander Discovery-Class Geophysics Mission to the Moon. In: 42nd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, March 7-11, 2011, The Woodlands, TX. (Unpublished) PDF
  8. Banerdt, B. (2010) Innovative Approaches for Seismic Studies of Mars (Invited). Transactions – American Geophysical Union. U41A-04. ISSN 0002-8606. Website
  9. Banerdt, B. and Cox, Z. N. and Seybold, C. et al. (2010) Geophysical Monitoring Station (GEMS): A Discovery-Class Mission to Explore the Interior of Mars. Transactions – American Geophysical Union. DI43A-1938. ISSN 0002-8606. Website
  10. Dehant, V. M. and Breuer, D. and Grott, M. et al. (2010) MarsTwin: an M-mission to Mars with two geophysical laboratories. Transactions – American Geophysical Union. P21A-1576. ISSN 0002-8606. Website
  11. Neal, Clive R. and Banerdt, B. and Jones, M. et al. (2010) Lunette: A Dual Lander Mission to the Moon to Explore Early Planetary Differentiation. Transactions – American Geophysical Union. DI43A-1939. ISSN 0002-8606. Website

Media

  1. Caltech Weekly: NASA Balloon Detects California Earthquake – Next Stop, Venus? (2021) Website
  2. Engineering and Science: Caltech’s Journey to the Center of the Earth. Spring, 2012. PDF
  3. FOX 11 News: Post Chile Quake Insights (2010) Website