NASA’s Insight probe reveals first detailed look at the interior of Mars

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NASA’s InSight probe arrived at Mars in 2018 to get a feel of its interior by observing “swamps,” and now the project is really beginning to bear fruit. NASA announced that researchers have mapped the inner red planet and discovered some big surprises and major differences with Earth.

The map is the first ever interior map of another planet. Compared to Earth, Mars has a thicker crust, a thinner, larger, less dense mantle, and a more liquid core than expected. This, in turn, suggests that Mars may have formed millions of years before our planet, when the Sun itself had not yet fully formed.

San Cottar, a seismologist at the University of Cambridge (who was not involved in the project) told The Wall Street Journal. “It’s impressive.”

Creating a map from the limited data provided by InSight was no easy feat. The probe has only recorded earthquakes from one location and has only one seismometer for one thing. And Mars – despite its seismic activity – has not had any earthquakes greater than about 4 on the Richter scale.

Sciences

However, by taking this data, along with the planet’s magnetism and orbital oscillation, the scientists were able to create a detailed map. The innermost core of the planet was found with a diameter of about 2,275 miles, which is larger than previously thought. Given the mass of the planet as a whole, this means that the iron/nickel core likely contains lighter elements such as sulfur, oxygen, and carbon.

In the meantime, he found that the crust was very old. It was also thicker in the southern highlands of Mars and thinner in the northern lowlands, which may have long hosted oceans. On average, it is between 15 and 45 miles thick and is divided into several layers of igneous rock.

The mantle extends between the crust and the core for approximately 970 miles below the surface. It is thinner than planet Earth and has a different composition indicating that the two planets originated from different materials when they formed. “This may be the simple explanation for not seeing plate tectonics on Mars,” Amir Khan, a geophysicist in Zurich and co-author of the study, told the New York Times.

The findings have given scientists new insight into not just the interior of Mars, but how rocky planets in general form. This will help them develop new theories about planet formation that could become especially valuable in the near future, when new instruments like the James Webb Space Telescope will allow astronomers to survey exoplanets around the galaxy. NASA will reveal more about its findings at a live event later today.

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