“The Mystery of Mars’ Core: Experts Discover its Composition through Seismic Data”

CNN Indonesia

Saturday, 29 Apr 2023 09:00 WIB

Jakarta, CNN Indonesia —

a number expert recently managed to solve the mystery of the content that is in the core of the planet Marswhich is an alloy of molten iron with an admixture of sulfur and oxygen in very large quantities.

A series of these materials were found by researchers through monitoring the earthquake that occurred on the Red Planet.

These results were obtained from seismic data obtained using the United States Space Agency’s InSight lander which has monitored the interior of the Red Planet for four years.

This is information that can help scientists better understand the history of Mars, and why Mars is different from Earth — one planet is a barren, lifeless ball of dust, while the other is fertile and teeming with life.

“In 1906, scientists first discovered the Earth’s core by observing how seismic waves from earthquakes are affected as they pass through it,” said study author Vedran Lekic, a geologist from the University of Maryland. Eurekalert.

“More than a hundred years later, we are applying our knowledge of seismic waves to Mars. With InSight, we have finally discovered what lies at the core of Mars and what makes Mars so similar but different from Earth,” he added.

An earthquake is called not just a rumble which implies internal activity within an object. Today scientists have the technology to use earthquakes as a kind of acoustic X-ray.

Earthquakes travel outward from their point of origin, bouncing around inside planets, the Moon or stars before finally settling. However, the way they propagate and bounce off certain materials allows scientists to create maps of the composition of these objects’ interiors.

In the relatively short time it takes to monitor the Martian interior, InSight detects hundreds of Martian earthquakes and provides very detailed information about the Martian interior. From this information, scientists were able to compile the first detailed map of the Martian core, and learn more about activity inside Mars.

The actual core of Mars will not be investigated until 2021. In that year, InSight recorded two extraordinary events on opposite sides of the planet, namely a giant earthquake larger than any lander has ever detected, and a meteorite impact that rocked Mars.

Because the two events occurred on the far side of the planet from InSight, the lander is able to analyze different waves, namely the waves moving around Mars and the waves passing through it, giving us the first seismic waves we know of moving through the core of Mars.

These waves reveal the density and compressibility of various materials through which they travel, allowing a team led by planetary scientist Jessica Irving of Bristol University in the UK to decipher what Mars’ core is made of.

Mars itself is said to have interesting things that are different from the Earth’s core which looks like a liquid outer core, a solid inner core, and an even denser inner core.

This is because the core of Mars looks like a spongy liquid and Mars has a very high proportion of lighter elements mixed in the core.

About one-fifth of Mars’ weight is made up of these elements, mostly sulfur, with small amounts of oxygen, carbon and hydrogen.

This means that Mars’ core is less dense and more compressed than Earth’s core, which could help scientists better understand the differences between the two planets.

We’ve known for a long time that Mars has no global magnetic field. On Earth, the magnetic field helps keep the atmosphere and water from leaking into space. This magnetic field is generated in the core of the Earth or what is known as geodynamics.

Heat moves from the inner core to the outer core, which produces circulatory currents that spiral into patterns under the influence of the planet’s rotation. This creates and maintains a magnetic field.

Previous research by scientists simulating the Martian core suggested the presence of lighter elements in the Martian core could play an important role in shutting down its dynamo and magnetic field.

“It’s like a puzzle in some ways. For example, there are tiny traces of hydrogen in the core of Mars. This means that there must have been certain conditions that allowed hydrogen to get there, and we have to understand those conditions to understand how Mars evolved into the planet it is today.” this,” said Lekic, quoted from Science Alert.

(lom/lth)