Data on the internal structure of Mars, as well as features of the planet’s core, mantle and crust, were revealed for the first time in history. The feat is due to the work of the InSight probe, launched by NASA, the US space agency, in May 2018.
The instrument placed a seismometer (a device that detects ground movements) on the surface of the red planet to measure seismic activity—or “martemotos,” as the Martian earthquakes were dubbed.
Waves generated by tremors vary in speed and size as they pass through different materials within a planet. Seismograph data on more than thirty Mars tremors allowed the planet’s interior to come into focus.
The core of Mars, the geological layer at the center of the planet, is 3,660 kilometers in diameter, a measure larger than previously thought. This suggests that the core, composed mostly of iron and nickel, is less dense than previously known, with lighter elements such as sulfur, oxygen, carbon and hydrogen representing an unexpectedly large proportion of the composition.
“The real importance of these discoveries is that, for the first time, we actually have measurements of dimensions – sizes – of the fundamental blocks of the planet Mars,” said planetary geophysicist Bruce Banerdt of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, principal investigator for the mission. of InSight.
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