--- title: Giant canyon on Mars is still tectonically active description: Valles Marineris, the largest canyon system in the solar system, is still tectonically active today. Researchers found direct seismic evidence that a marsquake... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/giant-canyon-on-mars-is-still-tectonically-active-yvoxcusqx twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Giant canyon on Mars is still tectonically active | daily.dev og:description: Valles Marineris, the largest canyon system in the solar system, is still tectonically active today. Researchers found direct seismic evidence that a marsquake... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/giant-canyon-on-mars-is-still-tectonically-active-yvoxcusqx og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/yvOxcUsqx.png og:image:alt: Giant canyon on Mars is still tectonically active og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Giant canyon on Mars is still tectonically active **[Hacker News](https://daily.dev/sources/hn)** · 6 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Valles Marineris, the largest canyon system in the solar system, is still tectonically active today. Researchers found direct seismic evidence that a marsquake detected by NASA's InSight lander, called S0976a and recorded on 25 August 2021, originated 20 to 40 kilometers beneath the canyon. The event was a strike-slip rupture, where crust blocks slid sideways along an ancient fault. The team ruled out meteoroid impacts and landslides as causes. The result shows ancient faults on Mars can still rupture even without active plate tectonics, and that InSight's data, despite the mission ending in 2022, keeps revealing new findings. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What caused the marsquake S0976a detected by NASA's InSight lander? The marsquake S0976a, recorded by InSight on 25 August 2021, was caused by a strike-slip rupture along an ancient fault 20 to 40 kilometers beneath western Valles Marineris, where blocks of crust slid horizontally past each other. Researchers ruled out meteoroid impacts and landslides, finding no fresh crater or new landslide in post-event satellite images. _Space and planetary tech enthusiasts can follow new Mars seismology findings as they emerge on daily.dev._ ### Is Mars still tectonically active even though it lacks plate tectonics? Yes, ancient faults beneath Valles Marineris can still rupture today even though Mars lacks moving tectonic plates, according to seismic data from NASA's InSight mission. Mars' outer shell behaves like a single, slowly cooling lid, yet billions-year-old fault structures remain weak enough to slip under present-day stresses from cooling and nearby Tharsis volcanic activity. _Readers tracking planetary science breakthroughs can keep up with findings like this on daily.dev._ ## Community take How the wider developer community reacted, aggregated from 1 discussion and 41 comments across hackernews (as of 2026-11-04). **TL;DR:** Discussion mostly drifts from the actual finding into broader Mars exploration topics (human habitability, colonization costs, radiation risks) with a smaller thread appreciating the seismic detection itself and canyon geography. **Sentiment:** 25% positive · 55% mixed · 20% skeptical **The case for** - Several found it impressive that a single seismometer could pinpoint a strike-slip quake 20-40km underground on the opposite side of the planet. - Some see the deep canyon and related geology (e.g. nearby basins) as scientifically fascinating and potentially useful for future exploration like aerobraking or drone deployment. **The pushback** - Many argue human Mars missions face severe unsolved problems: radiation exposure, toxic perchlorate-laced regolith, and unknown long-term physiological effects of low gravity. - Some question the costs and feasibility, noting Mars missions would run into hundreds of billions of dollars with meaningful failure risk. - One commenter questioned the terminology, asking how the activity can be called 'tectonic' without active plate tectonics. **By community** - hackernews (mixed): The thread quickly broadens from the marsquake finding into a long, mixed debate about human Mars colonization feasibility, costs, and alternatives like the Moon or robotic exploration, alongside some genuine appreciation for the seismic detective work and canyon trivia. **Hottest debate:** Whether humans should/could realistically live on or explore Mars versus focusing on the Moon or robotic missions, given radiation, dust, and cost concerns. **Open questions** - How feasible would a rover or drone mission into deep basins like Hellas Planitia actually be? - What explains the unusual fragmented terrain of Noctis Labyrinthus near the canyon? **Highlights** > The fact that they managed to narrow this down to a strike-slip event 20-40 km underground using data from a single seismometer is pretty impressive > — [KurSix on hackernews · 1 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50363318) > I've got to strongly disagree with Mars being "level 2" anything. Just the 6-9 month trip to Mars would expose humans to a lifetime of radiation; a "standard" mission to Mars -- voyage plus 1.5 years on-planet and back -- would expose astronauts to a total of hundreds of years radiation. When calculating total exposure per astronaut, you'd obviously have to include their (normal) exposure on Earth as well. Not great! Having said that, there would also be the cumulative effects of low/no gravity on astronauts. Even a year on the ISS has profound negative effects on the human body. And humans have cumulatively spent less than a month total on the moon. We have no idea how astronauts would fare on Mars for 18 months, but it would likely be very bad. And then they'd have to successfully get home. You also have abundant toxic chemicals in the Mars regolith. Whatever technology we'd use to extract drinking water from it would have to filter out perchlorates, which are extremely toxic to both mammal and plant life. AFAIK we've never done this at all on Mars, and now we're talking about having to do it successfully for 18 months (even with water recycling). Not easy! To be fair, a lot of proponents of human Mars exploration -- particularly here on HN -- see astronauts as essentially disposable. "Who cares if they risk dying of cancer / poisoning / suicide? It's worth it!" But if you prioritize astronauts surviving both the mission to Mars and the return home there are many, many, many unanswered questions, questions which may indeed have no good answers at all. Before you accuse me of being a hater: I fully support exploration of Mars, and the rest of the solar system. And the best way to do so, by cost and every other conceivable metric, is with robots. Lets spend way more on space exploration, do it with probes of all varieties, and learn more in our lifetime than in all previous human lifetimes put together! > — [teachrdan on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50368842) > Hope is not a strategy. Our existing method of moving between planets (heck, even the Earth & Moon) will take 9 months to get from Earth to Mars (or back). And the launch window is every 22 months. The return to Earth is either 4 weeks after you get to Mars, or 23 months later (so any fault that prevents a prompt return means you better have almost 3 years of food/water/air onboard). Without some magical SF technology being invented, no, we're not going to see humans travelling to Mars in our lifetimes. If folks are serious about human trips to Mars, there would be an effort to send supply ships ahead of time and stockpiling fuel/food/water/air in orbit around Mars. This would solve 2½ problems: 1 - Carrying supplies for both directions would require building spaceships bigger than we can currently build. 2 - If there is any failure on the way or at Mars, there will be stuff to let the astronauts survive until they can fix things or any sort of rescue mission could be sent. And "that half" - Currently, the US has had a 70% success rate sending stuff to Mars (the Soviets had 50% success). Some of those supply ships won't reach Mars orbit. Some will break on the way there and drift past Mars. Some will smash into the surface of Mars. Why send stuff? Supplying the astronauts on ISS requires sending 1000 pounds of stuff per person per month. And that's only 300 miles from Earth. And the ISS has water recycling, yet they still need water sent up. My estimates for a successful "manned" trip to Mars (and return them safely to Earth again) would start around $200 billion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohmann_transfer_orbit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_window This page claims Earth/Mars launch windows are every 26 months: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_Mars#Launch_win... > — [Tangurena2 on hackernews · 1 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50365198) > How can it be tectonically active if there is no tectonic ? Is an old house crumbling under its own weight and structural failure also tectonic ? > — [poulpy123 on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50366381) > Not an astronomer - but isn't it Really Old News that all of Mercury, Luna, and Mars are "obviously" tectonically active - because, even absent every other possible cause, they're all giant rocks, all slowly cooling, and rock shrinks as it cools? And Mars, with giant volcanoes and credible evidence of recent* vulcanism, obviously has more options for causing quakes. *"Recent" in the geologic sense - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanism_on_Mars#Potential_cu... > — [bell-cot on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50365010) **Source threads** - [hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50360573) · 134 points · 41 comments ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Even On The Red Planet, Hexagons Are The Bestagons](https://daily.dev/posts/even-on-the-red-planet-hexagons-are-the-bestagons-oucjw8eel) · Hackaday · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Venus may have remained temperate and potentially habitable for most of its history—then water-thin carbonatite lava carved vast channels, including one stretching 6,800 kilometres, and released enoug](https://daily.dev/posts/venus-may-have-remained-temperate-and-potentially-habitable-for-most-of-its-history-then-water-thin--xa3awpf6c) · Awesome Java Newsletter · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Is There Life in Liquid Water Now on Mars at a Depth of 5 to 10 Kilometers, and Could We Find It?](https://daily.dev/posts/is-there-life-in-liquid-water-now-on-mars-at-a-depth-of-5-to-10-kilometers-and-could-we-find-it--b5wot5yuz) · Medium · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Inside the Moon Mission That's a High-Tech Cave Hunt](https://daily.dev/posts/inside-the-moon-mission-that-s-a-high-tech-cave-hunt-bnefrvydt) · IEEE Spectrum · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Mars rovers give scientists a ground-level view of the red planet – peek inside their NASA control room](https://daily.dev/posts/mars-rovers-give-scientists-a-ground-level-view-of-the-red-planet-peek-inside-their-nasa-control-r-lfmpgc0yh) · Robohub · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#nasa](https://daily.dev/tags/nasa) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/giant-canyon-on-mars-is-still-tectonically-active-yvoxcusqx) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Giant canyon on Mars is still tectonically active","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/giant-canyon-on-mars-is-still-tectonically-active-yvoxcusqx","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/giant-canyon-on-mars-is-still-tectonically-active-yvoxcusqx"},"datePublished":"2026-11-04T08:14:48.507Z","dateModified":"2026-11-04T19:01:17.241Z","description":"Valles Marineris, the largest canyon system in the solar system, is still tectonically active today. 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