Question:
Which space agency has recorded the first “marsquake,” quake on Mars due to volcanic eruptions or land tides?
Which space agency has recorded the first “marsquake,” quake on Mars due to volcanic eruptions or land tides?
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“Marsquake” studies help scientists understand the planet’s tectonic activity and potential for past or present habitability.
Updated On: Jul 15, 2026
- JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency)
- NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration)
- ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation)
- Chinese Space Agency
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The Correct Option is B
Approach Solution - 1
NASA’s InSight lander detected the first-ever “marsquake” in 2019, providing direct evidence of seismic activity on the Red Planet. The tremors were believed to be caused by volcanic activity or shifts in the Martian crust, similar to earthquakes on Earth. This finding offers valuable insight into the planet’s internal structure and geological evolution.
Options (A), (C), and (D) are incorrect because the InSight mission is a NASA project dedicated to studying Mars’ interior.
Options (A), (C), and (D) are incorrect because the InSight mission is a NASA project dedicated to studying Mars’ interior.
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Approach Solution -2
The question asks which space agency recorded the first marsquake. Let's check each option.
- JAXA: JAXA is Japan's space agency and runs missions across the solar system, but it was not behind the mission that detected the first marsquake. This option does not fit.
- NASA: NASA's InSight lander detected the first ever marsquake in 2019, believed to be caused by volcanic activity or shifting of the Martian crust, offering fresh insight into the planet's interior. This matches the question.
- ISRO: ISRO has carried out notable missions to Mars, such as Mangalyaan, but the marsquake detection was not part of an ISRO mission. This option is incorrect.
- Chinese Space Agency: China has its own Mars exploration programme, but it was not responsible for recording the first marsquake. This option can be ruled out.
Among the four space agencies, only NASA, through its InSight lander, recorded the first marsquake.
Therefore, the correct answer is NASA.
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Approach Solution -3
Detecting a marsquake required a lander actually sitting on the Martian surface with seismic instruments, so identifying which agency's mission achieved this comes down to matching the achievement to the right spacecraft.
- JAXA: Japan's space agency has a strong track record with missions like Hayabusa for asteroid sample return, but it has not landed a seismometer-equipped spacecraft on Mars, so this discovery does not belong to it.
- NASA: placed a stationary lander called InSight on Mars in late 2018, specifically designed to study the planet's deep interior using a seismometer, and in 2019 that instrument picked up the first confirmed marsquake, a faint tremor linked to internal geological activity.
- ISRO: successfully sent an orbiter to Mars through the Mangalyaan mission, a major achievement in its own right, but an orbiter observes the planet from space and cannot detect ground-level seismic tremors the way a surface lander can.
- Chinese Space Agency: was still in the process of developing its own Mars ambitions around this period and had not yet placed a seismometer on the Martian surface, so it could not have recorded this particular event.
Only a lander built specifically to sense vibrations through the Martian crust could have made this detection, and that lander belonged to NASA.
Therefore, the correct answer is NASA.
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Top CLAT General Awareness Questions
- On the evening of the 10th, General Dyer arrived at Amritsar, and the Deputy-Commissioner handed over the civil power to him. He issued a proclamation by word of mouth that no meetings should be held. Two days later, after there had been no sort of riot, nor murder, General Dyer heard that a meeting was to be held at the Jallianwala Bagh. He proceeded there with about fifty troops, half British, half Indian, and a certain number of Ghurkas, armed with their kukris. The Jallianwala Bagh is an open space, half a mile square, which has one entry wide enough for three persons. The troops got in and lined up on a mound of debris. The walls, seven feet high, and the surrounding houses enclosed the people. There were, too, three alleys through which the people might have been able to pass. Within thirty seconds of the troops getting in, General Dyer gave orders to fire, and the crowd of people, estimated at anything from 5,000 to 20,000, who were sitting on the ground peacefully listening to the mob oratory, were fired on. The result of the troops’ fire into the mass of people we do not know. But we do know that Dyer’s own estimate of the casualties resulting from ten minutes continual individual firing, was 400 to 500 killed and 1,500 wounded. The people were not able to escape. They were people who had not offered any violence and who had not been warned. These people were shot down. After ten minutes, the ammunition was exhausted and the troops marched off, and they left 1,500 wounded there. There were men lying there for two days, dying of thirst, eating the ground, bleeding to death and nobody to look after them. Those who lived nearby came and carried away some of the wounded from the heap of dead and dying, but the unfortunate country people died there miserably of their wounds. This is what is done in 1919 in British India…
Centuries hence you will find Indian children brought up to this spot, just as they visit now the Cawnpore Well, and you can imagine the feelings of these Indians for generations over this terrible business.
[Col. Wedgwood, MP, speaking in the British Parliament, 22 December 1919] - On 26th January 1950, we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics, we will have equality and in social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man one value. How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions? How long shall we continue to deny equality in our social and economic life? If we continue to deny it for long, we will do so only by putting our political democracy in peril. We must remove this contradiction at the earliest possible moment else those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of democracy, which this Constituent Assembly has so laboriously built up.
I feel that the constitution is workable, it is flexible and it is strong enough to hold the country together both in peacetime and in wartime. Indeed, if I may say so, if things go wrong under the new Constitution, the reason will not be that we had a bad Constitution. What we will have to say is that man was vile?
The third thing we must do is not be content with mere political democracy. We must note that our political democracy cannot last unless there lies at the base of social democracy. What does social democracy mean? It means a way of life, which recognizes liberty, equality and fraternity as the principles of life.
… however, good a constitution may be, it is sure to turn out bad because those who are called to work it, happen to be a bad lot. However, bad a constitution may be, it may turn out to be good if those who are called to work it, happen to be a good lot. The working of a Constitution does not depend wholly upon the nature of the Constitution.
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What pleased and satisfied her so, here at Carignano, was its barrenness. This was the chief virtue of all Kasauli of course-its starkness. It had rocks, it had pines, it had light and air. In every direction there was a sweeping view - to the north, of the mountains, to the south, of the plains. Occasionally an eagle swam through this clear unobstructed mass of light and air, that was all. And Carignano, her home on the ridge, had no more than that. Why should it? The sun shone on its white walls. Its windows were open the ones facing north opened on to the blue waves of the Himalayas flowing out and up to the line of ice and snow sketched upon the sky, while those that faced south looked down the plunging cliff to the plain stretching out, flat and sere to the blurred horizon.
Yes, there were some apricot trees close to the house. There were clumps of iris that had finished blooming. There was the kitchen with a wing of smoke lifting out of its chimney and a stack of wood outside its door. But these were incidental, almost unimportant.
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Centuries hence you will find Indian children brought up to this spot, just as they visit now the Cawnpore Well, and you can imagine the feelings of these Indians for generations over this terrible business.
[Col. Wedgwood, MP, speaking in the British Parliament, 22 December 1919]
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