Abstract
AbstractSEIS, the seismometer of the InSight mission, which landed on Mars on 26 November 2018, is monitoring the seismic activity of the planet. The goal of the Mars Structure Service (MSS) is to provide, as a mission product, the first average 1‐D velocity model of Mars from the recorded InSight data. Prior to the mission, methodologies have been developed and tested to allow the location of the seismic events and estimation of the radial structure, using surface waves and body waves arrival times, and receiver functions. The paper describes these validation tests and compares the performance of the different algorithms to constrain the velocity model below the InSight station and estimate the 1‐D average model over the great circle path between source and receiver. These tests were performed in the frame of a blind test, during which synthetic data were inverted. In order to propagate the data uncertainties on the output model distribution, Bayesian inversion techniques are mainly used. The limitations and strengths of the methods are assessed. The results show the potential of the MSS approach to retrieve the structure of the crust and underlying mantle. However, at this time, large quakes with clear surface waves have not yet been recorded by SEIS, which makes the estimation of the 1‐D average seismic velocity model challenging. Additional locatable events, especially at large epicentral distances, and development of new techniques to fully investigate the data, will ultimately provide more constraints on the crust and mantle of Mars.
Highlights
Because of its higher‐resolving power relative to other geophysical methods for sounding the interior of a planetary body, seismology has played a prominent role in the study of the interiors of Earth and Moon
The results show that none of the distributions perfectly fit the input model, but depending on the method, they share some common feature with the model to retrieve
We describe the methodologies that have been proposed by the Mars Structure Service (MSS), based on a single station and a single event, and we demonstrate the feasibility for locating Marsquake and for constraining the 1‐D seismic velocity structure of Mars
Summary
Because of its higher‐resolving power relative to other geophysical methods for sounding the interior of a planetary body, seismology has played a prominent role in the study of the interiors of Earth and Moon. This is one of the primary reasons for landing a seismometer on Mars with the InSight mission (Banerdt et al, 2013). The InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) lander successfully delivered a geophysical instrument package to the Martian surface on 26 November 2018, including broadband and a short‐period seismometer instrument package called SEIS (Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure) (Lognonné et al, 2019).
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