In just seven months, the first functioning seismometer on Mars in decades has recorded 174 marsquakes. The findings show that the Red Planet is active in both seismic and volcanic activity.

A number of unusual cracks break deeply into the surface of Mars not far from the equator. The hundreds of miles-long Cerberus Fossae fractures pierce craters, hills, and anything else in their path. Long-running rumours about whether the area is still active today have been fanned by surrounding volcanoes that appear to be quite young and by trails of tumbling pebbles.

There's no reason to wonder any longer. The first 10 months' worth of discoveries from NASA's Mars InSight lander were presented by scientists in a series of publications that were published on Monday in the journals Nature Geoscience and Nature Communications. Its conclusions, among many others, provide a resounding explanation for the Cerberus Fossae mystery: Mars is a geologically active planet that frequently experiences earthquakes.

The seismology, geophysics, meteorology, and magnetism of Mars were the focus of the InSight lander's research. It is equipped with the first operational seismometer to explore the surface of the Red Planet since 1978. Additionally, it has placed the planet's first magnetometer.

However, scientists believe that InSight's findings may ultimately aid them in better understanding the geological processes that have produced our neighbouring world, even though its lack of wheels may make for less attention-grabbing news stories than a rover like Curiosity.

InSight's instruments picked up two powerful seismic jolts last year, which scientists were able to link to the main surface fault connected to Cerberus Fossae, which is around 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometres) away from the lander. On the Richter scale, each incident had a magnitude of 3.6.

At a media briefing last week, InSight Principal Investigator Bruce Banerdt stated, 'For the first time, we've established that Mars is a seismically active planet.' And it is more seismically active than the moon.

As of now, Earth's seismic activity away from plate tectonic boundaries appears to be comparable to that of Mars. Furthermore, the significance of these marsquakes goes much beyond the novelty value of merely being aware of their existence.

Seismic activity has been a major source of information for geologists concerning the interior of our own planet. Seismic waves encounter various densities of materials as they pass through the interior of a planet, changing their speed and direction. Therefore, NASA's InSight lander is providing a window into the interior of the Red Planet with each signal it sends back.