Scientists just “looked” inside Mars. This is what they found

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The researchers found that the density of the pulp is surprisingly low, at only about 6 grams per cubic centimeter, which is much lower than they would expect from an iron-rich concentrate. “It’s still a mystery how the core is so light,” Staller says. There should be lighter elements present, although what exactly may be unclear. He and his team eventually hope to detect the P waves generated by the earthquake originating directly across the planet from where InSight left off. Since they can penetrate the boundaries of the core mantle, they will transmit information about the composition of the core to the probe’s receiver. But for that to happen, Staller says, “Mars has to play all the way and give us this one earthquake on the other side of the planet.”

In the Stähler team’s paper, they report a core radius of 1,830 kilometres. Another team, led by ETH Zürich geophysicist Amir Khan, found that this volume is too large to leave much room for an Earth-like lower mantle, a layer that acts as a mantle that traps heat around the core. The Earth’s mantle is divided into two parts, between which is the so-called transition zone; The upper and lower levels consist of different minerals. “The mantle of Mars – may I say upside down – is a slightly simpler version of Earth’s mantle, simply in terms of mineralogy,” says Khan, lead author of the paper describing the mantle.

Previous estimates of the radius of the core using geochemical and geophysical data indicated the absence of a bottom cover, but the scientists needed InSight’s seismic readings to confirm this. Without this layer, Mars’ core would likely cool much more easily than Earth’s. This is key to understanding the Red Planet’s evolution, especially why it lost its magnetic field, a barrier that would have protected its atmosphere – and potential life – from the harsh solar winds. Creating a magnetic field requires a temperature gradient between the outer and inner core, high enough to form circulating currents that burn the core’s fluid and give rise to a magnetic field. But the core cooled so quickly that these convection currents became extinct.

Khan’s analysis also shows that Mars has a thick lithosphere, the hard and cold part of the mantle. This may be a clue as to why the Red Planet doesn’t have the tectonic plates that drive a frenzy of volcanic activity on Earth. “If you have a very dense lithosphere, it’s going to be very difficult to break this thing and create the exact equivalent of plate tectonics on Earth,” says Khan. “Mars may have had it too soon, but it’s definitely closed now.”

While InSight eavesdrops on Mars’ internal vibrations, Perseverance has been rolling around its dusty surface looking for signs of ancient life in the rocks, searching for places to collect regolith samples, and learning about Jezero’s geological history. “Exploration is not a sprint, it’s a marathon,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA associate administrator for science, who opened Wednesday’s press conference highlighting early developments from the craft’s first few months in its new home. “Perseverance is one step in a long legacy of carefully planned Mars exploration that links human and robot exploration for the time ahead.”

The scientists laid out at the press conference what he has been persevering on his road trip so far. “The challenge is figuring out exactly where we want to go and how we’re going to fit everything into our schedule,” said Vivian Sun, systems engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Sun said they decided to divert Perseverance 3,000 feet south of its landing site to extract the first rock samples, which will be stored in the probe’s belly and then temporarily stored on the planet’s surface for a future return mission that will take them back to Earth. .

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