In historic first, NASA spacecraft maps the interior of Mars

CNET ^ | 22 July 2021 | Jackson Ryan

[BeauBo]

In November 2018, NASA landed InSight on the Martian surface... Its mission, which was recently extended to 2022, is to listen for "marsquakes" and understand what's going on beneath the surface of our cosmic neighbor.

In a series of three studies published in the journal Science on Thursday (22 July 2021), a global team of researchers describe the interior of Mars using data obtained by InSight's seismometer, an instrument that responds to vibrations and noise under Mars' surface. Analyzing a series of marsquakes, felt by InSight since 2019, researchers have been able to reveal the inner workings of another planet in our solar system for the first time -- a breakthrough for planetary geoscience...

Previous research has shown that marsquakes are common, but they aren't very powerful. Only a handful register upward of magnitude 3 which, on Earth, might feel like a slight rumbling from a few miles away, but isn't quite strong enough to cause significant damage to structures and buildings. Most originate in the upper layer of the planet's crust, but the studies probed 10 that originated from deeper below the surface. Listening to the waves generated by these quakes is how researchers came to understand Mars' innards...

The upper layer of the crust, which is composed of basalt rock from ancient lava flows, seems to be at most around 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) thick. But InSight's data revealed that another layer, approximately double that size, lies just beneath it. Underneath that, Knapmeyer-Endrun said in a press release, might be where the "mantle" begins -- which would make Mars' crust "surprisingly thin."

But the team also showed that there may be a third layer in the crust, extending the depth down to around 40 kilometers.

[BeauBo]

The article goes on, to describe Mars' core:

"The boundary between the mantle and the core seems to be a touch under 1,000 miles below the surface, which is larger than some studies have suggested. The suggestion, according to an accompanying piece published in Science on Thursday, is that the iron-nickel core is less dense than previously predicted, but is in a liquid state as other studies have argued."

Here is a "selfie" of the InSight lander, taken on the surface of Mars.

A cutaway depiction of SEIS, a dome-shaped instrument that sits on the surface of Mars. The white outer layer shields the sensitive instrument from the environment.

[albie]

Don’t tell me. Let me guess. It’s “Biden’s Space Program”. Did I win? I won and I know it.

[Red Badger]

It’s HOLLOW!.......................

[BenLurkin]

[Tell It Right]

I'm wondering if NASA has a picture of the flag Armstrong planted on Mars. LOL

[Fred Hayek]

I had thought the iron core was solid, thus the lack of protective magnetosphere.

[antidemoncrat]

She highlights the problems that many blacks have today ... she is part of the elites elected to look after and solve the problems their constituents but is only interested in her own wealth and power. So in order not to be accused of being racist ... most of the white members of Congre$$ are in the same boat ... it’s called the Dc Swamp.

[Tell It Right]

IMHO the racist white Dims in charge of their party intentionally put the dumbest blacks in power as a way to broadcast their racist belief that blacks in general are dumb and to give young blacks a dumb role model to look up to.

There's a reason almost none of the smart blacks in power are Dim.

[butlerweave]

Where did Sheila Jackson Lee disappear to ?

[BeauBo]

“I had thought the iron core was solid, thus the lack of protective magnetosphere.”

Maybe this discovery improves the chances of terraforming Mars, to be more suitable for habitation.

I also saw somewhere else, before this liquid core information came in, that it could be feasible to orbit an big electromagnetic shield generator, that could divert enough of the solar wind, to protect an atmosphere on Mars.