Sweet Surprise: From the first appearance of NASA Insight Lander inside Mars, the crust of the Red Planet looks like a three-layer cake.
- Lender’s seismometer has recorded 480 Marscocks since April 2019
- Differences in how seismic waves move allow scientists to evaluate crust size and composition
- They believe that the crust of Mars is about 23 miles thick, much thicker than Earth
- Seismic activity has virtually stopped since June with just four earthquakes
Data returning to Earth from NASA’s Insight Lander suggest that the crust of Mars is made up of three cake-like layers.
The super-sensitive seismometer of the robotic lander, anchored near the equator of Mars, known as SIIS, has recorded hundreds of ‘Marsquakes’ in the last two years.
Each earthquake carries out two sets of seismic waves and analyzing the differences in how those waves move allows researchers to begin calculating the size and composition of the Earth’s crust, mantle, and core.
Bruce Banerjee, a scientist at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told Nature: ‘We have enough data to start answering some of these big questions.
Launched in 2018, the Insight mission marks the first time scientists have seen an interior of a planet other than Earth.
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Analysis of the primary and secondary waves caused by hundreds of Marsquakes suggests that the crust of the Red Planet is composed of three ‘cake-like’ layers.
The Earth’s crust is divided into three sublayers of rock: metamorphic, igneous, and silt.
Scientists theorized that the crust of Mars was designed in a similar way, but, so far, it had no data to work with.
According to the Nature report, Mars has only two layers, but Martian arranges a three-layer crust with meteorite analysis.
Comparing the primary and secondary waves of the Marsquakes, they cut the crust averaging 23 miles thick, and its thickest is close to 42.
NASA’s Insight Lander arrived on Mars in 2018, but its ‘Mall’ probe has had difficulty drilling below the surface.
Insight’s super sensitive seismometer, also known as SIIS, has more than 480 Mercury akes recorded. Analyzing the primary and secondary waves from this earthquake, the researchers believe that the crust of Mars is about 23 miles thick.
It is significantly thicker than the Earth, with a crust that varies about 3 miles below the continents, up to 18 miles below the continents.
Insight (short for internal research using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) arrived on Mars in November 2018.
His probe, known as the ‘Mall’, was designed to dig down the Earth’s surface and take in the Earth’s temperature – but unexpected properties in Martian soil made progress difficult.
Other devices on the lander are fully operational, thanks – including the seismometer, provided by the French space agency, the Center National d’udes tuds spati tiles.
Since April 2019, more than 480 earthquakes have been recorded in SEIS. The tremors are much milder than the magnitude of the relative.
“It’s a little surprising that we haven’t seen any major events,” said Mark Penning, a seismologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Penning says it is not yet clear whether Mars is more stable than Earth or whether Insight landed during a quiet interval.
Earthquakes were daily for a while, but abruptly stopped in late June – just when the planet entered the windiest season of the year.
The seismometer has ield, but it is possible that the wind is so strong that it shakes the ground and shakes the legal vibration.
Researchers hope that larger earthquakes will occur, giving more insight into the planet’s inner layers.
‘Sometimes you get a big glimpse of surprising information, but most of the time you’re annoyed by what nature has to say to you.’
‘It’s more like trying to follow a trail of difficult links than giving us the answers presented in a nicely wrapped package.’
What are the three key tools of confidence?
Lander can reveal how the Earth was formed: Insight Lander set to land on Mars on November 26
Three key instruments will allow Insight Lander to ‘pulse’ the red planet:
Seismometer: Carries Insight Lander a Seismometer, CIS, which listens to the pulse of Mars.
A seismometer records the waves passing through the planet’s interior.
Studying seismic waves tells us what the waves are creating.
On Mars, scientists suspect the culprits could be mercury or meteors striking the surface.
Heat test: Insight’s heat flow probe, the HP3, burrows more than any other scoop, drill or probe on Mars before it.
It will investigate how much heat is still flowing from Mars.
Radio antenna: Like Earth, Mars revolves a little around its axis.
To study this, two radio antennas, part of the RISE instrument, accurately track the location of the lander.
This helps scientists examine the planet’s reactions and tells them how the deep inner structure affects the planet’s motion around the sun.
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