Data from Insight reveals the size of Mars’ core

An international team of researchers studying seismic data collected by NASA’s Insight spacecraft has used the data to calculate the size of Mars’ core. The group plans to discuss their findings at this year’s Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, which will take place pretty much because of the pandemic. As a prelude to the conference, team member Simon Stähler has made a pre-recorded presentation available for interested parties. The team plans to submit their results to a peer-reviewed journal in the near future.

Until now, the only celestial bodies whose nuclei have been measured have been the Earth and the Moon. To make such measurements, scientists have used seismic data from sensors that detect the sounds of earthquakes. To do the same for Mars, NASA sent Insight to the red planet – it landed near the planet’s equator in 2018 and started listening for Mars quakes shortly after. To date, sensors onboard the vessel have captured seismic data for about 500 earthquakes. The researchers found that most earthquakes are quite small compared to those on Earth, although there are about 50 between 2 and 4 magnitudes – strong enough to use for measuring the planet’s interior. Before the core was measured, data from Insight had been used to measure the depth and thickness of layers of the Martian crust.

To use seismic data to measure the interior of a planetary body, many measurements are required. The sensors can see where such waves begin and end, revealing how long it takes for a wave to pass through a particular part of the planet. This makes it possible to calculate the density. Using this data, the researchers were able to measure the depth of the boundary between the core and the mantle in many places, which allowed them to calculate the size of the core – it has a radius of between 1,810 and 1,860 kilometers, making them about half as much. big as the core of the earth. This finding is somewhat of a surprise – previous research had suggested it might be bigger. The new data suggests that the core must contain more light elements than previously thought.

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