A radioactive sea of magma discovered under the surface of Mars: everything is much stranger than we thought
A new analysis of seismic data obtained by NASA’s InSight lander has revealed that a vast radioactive ocean of magma lurks beneath the surface of Mars. Scientists believe that this layer, completely unlike anything found on Earth, goes 200 kilometers deep.
The discovery of this magma sea is described in two independent studies published in the journal Nature. How write Futurismit may explain why preliminary calculations showed that the core of Mars is unusually large and less dense.
“This does not exist on Earth,” said Amir Khan, lead author of one of the studies and a geophysicist from ETH Zurich, commenting on the discovery. in an interview with The New York Times.
New evidence suggests that Mars’ core may be small and dense, like Earth’s, and that its true size is hidden by a layer of magma. These findings also cast doubt on the evolutionary history of Mars and possibly other terrestrial worlds.
Since 2018, InSight has been helping scientists identify and study seismic tremors on Mars. But over the years, none of the “marsquakes” have been strong enough to penetrate deep enough into the red planet’s interior to reveal anything about its core.
According to preliminary data, scientists have calculated that the radius of Mars’ core is about 1850 km. This indicates that it is not dense enough to be a uniform ball of liquid iron. There must be carbon, oxygen and hydrogen present.
Other scientists argued about this, noting that such light elements should have evaporated long ago under the influence of the heat of magma or the Sun.
In August and September 2021, two huge tremors occurred on Mars, permeating the planet with vibrations.
Analysis of the data obtained from these vibrations showed that the radius of the core was smaller than thought – approximately 1,680 kilometers and most likely consisted of almost pure liquid iron.
“This means that the average density of the Martian core is still somewhat low, but is no longer incomprehensible in the context of typical planet formation scenarios,” said Paolo Sossi, co-author of one of the studies, a planetary scientist at ETH Zurich. commenting on your work.
However, the rare core of Mars has created a new mystery for scientists. It is known that the now barren Mars in the past had a protective magnetic field. Scientists believed that, as in the case of Earth and other terrestrial worlds, its appearance was facilitated by the gradual cooling of the core, causing the rest of the liquid iron to spin and generate a magnetic field.
But it turns out that the magma sea simply did not allow the core to cool, so something else was responsible for the magnetic field of Mars.
Earlier, OBOZ.UA reported that scientists named the source of a powerful earthquake on “dead” Mars.
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