Title:   “Seismology across the Solar System - from the Moon to Mars  and beyond”

Speaker:   Benjamin Fernando, Blaustein Postdoctoral Fellow

                  Earth & Planetary Sciences, JHU

Abstract:   Seismology has provided unprecedented insights into the structure of the Earth’s interior. In the 1970s, the Apollo seismic experiments offered us some of the first detailed clues as to the properties of the Moon’s interior, but those experiments were switched off in 1976. The next successful deployment of a seismometer off of the Earth did not take place until 2018, when NASA’s InSight mission landed on Mars. 

I was lucky enough to be able to work on InSight, and led a number of impact seismology experiments, using meteoroid strikes on the surface as seismic sources. In this talk I will outline why these measurements are so vital for exploring Mars’ interior, and touch upon similar experiments that will soon be carried out on the surface of the Moon, as well as farther afield on the icy worlds of the outer Solar System.