Listen to the moment the red planet moved: Nasa's InSight lander captures the sound of the first 'Marsquake'
Nasa's robotic probe has recorded the sound of the first ever ''Marsquake''.
The seismological tremor is believed to be the first on another plant - and to have come from inside the planet.
However rather than a loud tremble, listeners have been greeted with the sound of a faint rumble gathering speed.
The breakthrough has come five months after Nasa scientists sent the InSight lander to Mars.
The robotic spacecraft was designed specifically to study our surrounding planets and is currently on a two year seismological mission of Mars.
The faint rumble, which also sounds like a long whoosh, has been described by scientists at the Jet Propulson Laboratory in California as a likely ''Marsquake''. It was recorded on April 6 which is the lander’s 128th Martian day.
Scientists examined the data forensically in order to nail the precise cause of the signal and have concluded that the trembling appears to have originated from inside the planet.Scientists have said the sound was not caused by forces above the surface of the planet such as wind.
Nasa said the footage reveals three distinct kinds of sounds: noise from Martian wind, the tremor, and the spacecraft’s robotic arm as it moves to take pictures.
Bruce Banerdt, principal investigator of NASA's InSight mission told The Guardian: “We’ve been collecting background noise up until now, but this first event officially kicks off a new field: Martian seismology.''
The tremor was so faint that a quake of the same magnitude in southern California would be virtually lost among the dozens of seismological crackles that occur there every day, JPL said.
The rumble on Mars stood out because the surface of the red planet is extremely quiet in comparison with Earth.
So what exactly is a ''Marsquake''?Quakes on Earth are primarily caused by ever-shifting tectonic plates. As they rearrange themselves, stresses build up until they can't any longer—triggering a breaking point that results in an earthquake.
Unlike Earth, however, Mars doesn't seem to have tectonic plates. Instead, its trembles are thought to come from the slow cooling of the planet over time, which causes the orb to contract and develop fractures on its surface. These quakes can also come from the impact of meteors and possibly the movement of magma deep underground.
Researchers hope to use Mars' shakes and shivers to study the planet's innards.Experts have described it as being akin to using an ultrasound to peer inside a body: By looking at how seismic waves bounce around inside the planet, researchers can infer its internal structures.
The sound of the ''Marsquake'' was similar to moonquakes
The size and duration of the ''Marsquake'' is identical to some of the thousands of moonquakes picked up between 1969 and 1977 by seismometers installed there by Apollo missions, revealed Lori Glaze, planetary science division director at Nasa headquarters in Washington.
No estimated Earth-magnitude equivalent was immediately given for the apparent marsquake.
Three other apparent seismic signals were picked up by InSight on 14 March, 10 April and 11 April but were even smaller and more ambiguous in origin, leaving scientists less certain they were ''Marsquakes.''