Scientists Successfully Create a Map of the Core of the Planet Mars

NASA’s Insight spacecraft has succeeded in creating a map of the interior of Mars after 2 years of research.

REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, WASHINGTON — Scientists made a map of the interior of the planet Mars. The planet’s core is shaped like a bruised peach sliced ​​apart to reveal a large yellow hole within. This interior map was released as part of three new studies published July 22 in the journal Science.

Interior premiere Mars this is the culmination of two years of research and decades of planning with NASA’s InSight lander. InSight NASA is a stationary science robot that was deployed to Mars in 2018. Mission InSight NASA is studying the unseen interior of the Red Planet.

About a month after landing on the flat, smooth plain known as Elysium Planitia, InSight used its robotic arm to mount a small seismometer on the surface of nearby Mars. The robot begins to listen for marsquakes, which are seismic vibrations within the planet, similar to earthquakes on Earth.

“Unlike Earth, Mars does not have plate tectonics. Its crust is like one giant plate,” the NASA researchers wrote in a statement. Space, Friday (23/7).

“But fractures, or rock cracks, still form in the Martian crust due to the stresses caused by the planet’s slight shrinkage as it continues to cool,” he said.

These fractures can cause seismic vibrations. Over the past two years, InSight has detected 733 vibrations. Using the 35 largest earthquakes (each measuring between 3.0 and 4.0), NASA researchers calculated how fast and how far seismic waves travel within the planet, allowing them to map the structure of its interior.

The team found that, like Earth, Mars’ interior consists of three layers: crust, mantle and core, but the size and composition of these layers differ markedly between the two planets.

Mars’ crust is much thinner than researchers thought. It measures between 12 and 23 miles (20 to 37 kilometers) deep and contains two or three sub-layers. In comparison, the Earth’s crust extends to a maximum depth of about 62 miles or 100 km.

Beneath the crust is a sizable mantle, extending about 969 miles (1,560 km) below the Martian surface, followed by a giant core that begins about halfway between the surface and the center of the planet. Liquid cores, like Earth’s outer core, are bigger and more fluid than researchers thought.

Scientists still don’t know whether Mars contains a solid inner core, like Earth. But according to the researchers, successfully measuring the planet’s outer core with just a few years of study is a remarkable achievement.

“It took scientists hundreds of years to measure the Earth’s core,” Simon Stähler, lead author of one of the new papers and professor of Earth sciences at Swiss research university ETH Zurich, said in a statement.

“After the Apollo missions, it took them 40 years to measure the core of the moon. InSight only took two years to measure the core of Mars,” he added.

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