This impression shows NASA’s InSight lander after it has deployed its instruments on the surface of Mars. The small image on the right is a selfie the lander took of itself. (Graphic and image: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
This impression shows NASA's InSight lander after it has deployed its instruments on the surface of Mars. The small image on the right is a selfie the lander took of itself. (Graphic and image: NASA/JPL-Caltech) - Researchers at ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich have been able to use seismic data to look inside Mars for the first time. Marsquakes recorded by NASA's InSight lander provided information about the structure of the planet's crust, mantle and core. We know that Earth is made up of layers: a thin crust of light, solid rock surrounds a thick mantle of heavy, viscous rock, which in turn envelopes a core consisting mainly of iron and nickel. Mars has been assumed to have a similar structure. "Now seismic data has confirmed our view that Mars is a differentiated planet that presumably was once completely molten before differentiating into crust, mantle and core - that are compositionally distinct like in the Earth," says Amir Khan, a scientist at the Institute of Geophysics at ETH Zurich and at the Physics Institute at the University of Zurich.
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