There are many mysteries in the cosmos, but at least one of them may be a little closer to being solved. Now researchers may have some clues as to how Mars formed thanks to data from NASA’s InSight spacecraft. The information belongs to the rock and soil on the surface of the planet, with some seismic activity on the red planet offering some clues as to what lies beneath the surface of one of the most interesting and mysterious planets in the solar system.
Seconds Science Magazine, (via IGN), researchers studying the InSight spacecraft have been able to detect boundaries in rocks tens and hundreds of kilometers below the planet’s crust. This crust also turns out to be very thin and the mantle of the planet also proves to be a colder temperature than the molten iron core on Mars would suggest. The interesting thing about this information is that it suggests that what is now the planet Mars was cooled by the use of plate tectonics with a pattern of “ascending mantle rock and subducting crust”.
The data also revealed that Mars may have a much finer crust than we have on Earth and that the red planet may also be made up of two or three different layers. Researchers will need more data to further develop their theories and findings, which has so far proved to be a challenge. The data comes from seismic activity on the planet, but wind on the planet has made it difficult to detect any seismic activity. Dust on the solar panels has also forced the team to turn off the boat’s robotic arm, which it must use to try to get a heat probe deeper into the surface. The heat probe ended up trapped in the ground that had been expected to collapse when the probe was inserted. Mars has also somewhat frustrated the process in terms of the strength of its “marsquakes”. The report indicated that there had been no magnitude greater than 4.5, which is somewhat unusual, although it could be attributed to several factors, including the size of the Mars faults and also the consistency of the crust of the planet.
However, researchers hope to be lucky and get much more information.
“We’re waiting for another stack of event detections,” says Bruce Banerdt, principal investigator of InSight and geophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
What do you think of this new information about Mars? Let us know in the comments.