We got the best look ever at Mars

NASA’s InSight robotic earth has just given us the depths of a planet other than Earth.

More than two years after its launch, the seismic data collected by InSight has given researchers an insight into how Mars formed, how it has evolved over 4.6 billion years, and its differences from Earth. A set of three newly published studies In sciencee This week, Mars suggests it has a thicker crust than we thought, as well as a molten liquid core that is larger than we thought.

In the early days of the solar system, Mars and Earth were pretty much the same, each covering the surface with an ocean blanket. But over the next 4 billion years the Earth became warm and perfect for life, Mars lost its atmosphere and water and became the barren desert we know today. Knowing what Mars is like inside we can find out why the two planets have been so different.

“Going from there [a] understanding what cartoons are like when you put real numbers on the inside of Mars, ”he said. Mark Panning, A scientist on the InSight mission project, told NASA in a press conference, “We are able to spread the genealogy to understand how these rocky planets are formed, how they are similar, and how they are different.”

Since InSight landed on Mars in 2018, the seismometer on the planet’s surface has received more than a thousand different earthquakes. Most are so small that they would be unnoticed by someone on the surface of Mars. Some were big enough to help the team get a real first look at what was going on underneath.

Moscow produces seismic waves that detect seismometers. The researchers created a 3D map of Mars using data from two different types of seismic waves: cutting and pressure waves. The shear waves, which can only pass through solids, are reflected from the surface of the planet.

Pressure waves are faster and can pass through solids, liquids and gases. Measuring the differences between the times these waves arrived allowed researchers to find earthquakes and provided clues about their internal composition.

A team, head Simon St.Ahread, A seismologist at ETH Zurich, used data from 11 larger earthquakes to study the core of the planet. From the way seismic waves are reflected from the nucleus, they conclude that it is made of liquid nickel-iron, and is much larger than previously estimated (width between 2,230 and 2320 miles) and probably less dense.