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Deep Mars is surprisingly soft

Two analyses of seismic waves that traversed Mars paint the clearest picture yet of the red planet’s core and deep mantle — and rationalize the puzzling implications of a previous interpretation of the seismological data.
  1. Suzan van der Lee

    1. Suzan van der Lee is in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA.

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In 2019, Mars became only the third body in the Universe, after Earth and the Moon, to have a seismological study carried out of its deep interior. The InSight Mars Lander used an instrument called the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) to record seismic waves passing through Mars’s interior. The seismometer collected data during nearly three years of marsquakes, including two seismic events caused by meteorite impacts. Writing in Nature, Samuel et al.1 and Khan et al.2 present analyses of these seismic signals. Their findings improve our understanding of the layers of Mars that lie deep beneath the crust, and help to put the structure and origins of the Martian interior into context with formation and evolution scenarios for rocky (terrestrial) planets in the Solar System.

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Nature 622, 699-700 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-03151-x

References

  1. Samuel, H. et al. Nature 622, 712–717 (2023).

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  2. Khan, A. et al. Nature 622, 718–723 (2023).

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  3. Elkins-Tanton, L. T., Zaranek, S. E., Parmentier, E.M. & Hess, P. C. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 236, 1–12 (2005).

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  4. Stähler, S. C. et al. Science 373, 443–448 (2021).

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  5. Steenstra, E. S. & van Westrenen, W. Icarus 315, 69–78 (2018).

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Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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