11/28/2023 0 Comments Quake led seismic series![]() ![]() JPL and Caltech have been developing this balloon-based seismology technique since 2016. Observations of seismic activity there would strengthen our understanding of rocky planets, but Venus’ extreme environment requires us to investigate novel detection techniques.” We don’t have this luxury on other planetary bodies, particularly on Venus. “Tens of thousands of ground-based seismometers populate spatially-dense or permanent networks, enabling this possibility on Earth. Leonhard Professor of Mineral Physics at Caltech’s Seismological Laboratory and a study co-author. “Much of our understanding about Earth’s interior – how it cools and its relationship to the surface, where life resides – comes from the analysis of seismic waves that traverse regions as deep as Earth’s inner core,” said Jennifer M. These measurements can also be used to detect volcanic and tectonic activity. ![]() By studying the strength and speed of waves produced by an earthquake or explosion, seismologists can determine the character of rocky layers beneath the surface and even pinpoint reservoirs of liquid, such as oil or water. On Earth, different materials and structures refract these subsurface waves in different ways. One key way to understand how a rocky planet evolved is to study what’s inside, and one of the best ways to do that is to measure the seismic waves that bounce around below its surface. Scientists aren’t sure why that happened. In their new study, published on June 20 in Geophysical Research Letters, the team behind the balloons describes how a similar technique could help reveal the innermost mysteries of Venus, where surface temperatures are hot enough to melt lead and atmospheric pressures are high enough to crush a submarine.Īpproximately the size of Earth, Venus is thought to have once been more hospitable before evolving into a place that is remarkably different from our habitable world. On July 22, highly sensitive barometers (instruments that measure changes in air pressure) on one of the balloons detected the low-frequency sound waves caused by an aftershock on the ground. Their goal: to test the technology for future applications at Venus, where balloons equipped with science instruments could float above the planet’s exceedingly inhospitable surface.Īnd they succeeded. Seeing an opportunity, researchers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech flew instruments attached to high-altitude balloons over the region in hopes of making the first balloon-borne detection of a naturally occurring earthquake. Between July 4 and July 6, 2019, a sequence of powerful earthquakes rumbled near Ridgecrest, California, triggering more than 10,000 aftershocks over a six-week period. ![]()
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