The researchers’ results indicated that Mars most likely has a completely liquid core, unlike Earth’s combination of a liquid outer core and solid inner core.Īdditionally, the team inferred details about the core’s chemical composition, such as the surprisingly large amount of light elements (elements with low atomic numbers)-namely sulfur and oxygen-present in Mars’ innermost layer. By comparing the time it took those waves to travel through Mars compared to waves that stayed in the mantle, and combining this information with other seismic and geophysical measurements, the team estimated the density and compressibility of the material the waves traveled through. To determine these differences, the team tracked the progression of two distant seismic events on Mars, one caused by a marsquake and the other by a large impact, and detected waves that traveled through the planet’s core. With InSight, we’re finally discovering what’s at the center of Mars and what makes Mars so similar yet distinct from Earth.” “More than a hundred years later, we’re applying our knowledge of seismic waves to Mars. “In 1906, scientists first discovered the Earth’s core by observing how seismic waves from earthquakes were affected by traveling through it,” said UMD Associate Professor of Geology Vedran Lekic, second author of the paper. Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, these findings reveal new insights into how Mars formed and geological differences between Earth and Mars that may ultimately play a role in sustaining planetary habitability.

An international research team-which included University of Maryland seismologists-used seismic data acquired by the NASA InSight lander to directly measure properties of Mars’s core, finding a completely liquid iron-alloy core with high percentages of sulfur and oxygen.

Author of the martian new book