Earthquakes do occur on Earth, and there have been earthquakes on the Moon as well. Chandrayaan-3 has given this information. According to the report, these earthquakes have occurred due to meteorite or heat-related impact. ISRO has done a preliminary analysis of the data obtained from Chandrayaan-3’s earthquake-indicating equipment, in which this information has come to light.
The paper published in the journal ‘Icarus’ summarizes the observations of 190 hours of data recorded by the Lunar Seismic Activity Instrument (ILSA). ILSA is one of the five major scientific instruments carried by Chandrayaan-3’s Vikram Lander and Pragyan Rover. Researchers said, detailed study is needed to get more information from the data.
ILSA provided 190 hours of data
ISRO said, the earthquake detector ILSA operated continuously till September 2, 2023, after which it was turned off and packed back. The lander was then moved to a new point about 50 cm away from the initial point. ILSA worked for about 218 hours on the lunar surface, with 190 hours of data available.
Recognizes over 250 signs
“We identified more than 250 unique signals, of which about 200 were associated with known physical activities of the rover or the operation of scientific instruments,” the study authors wrote. The authors considered 50 signals that could not be linked to lander or rover activities as “unrelated events.” Unrelated signals recorded by Ilsa could be due to micrometeoroid impacts in the vicinity of the instrument, local thermal effects on the soil, or thermal adjustments within lander subsystems.
