Mars Core (IMAGE)
Caption
Analysis of Martian seismic data recorded by the InSight mission in combination with first-principles simulations of the seismic properties of liquid metal alloys have revealed that Mars’s liquid iron core is surrounded by a 150-km thick molten silicate layer, as a consequence of which its core is smaller than previously proposed. The decrease in core radius implies a higher density than estimated earlier and is compatible with a metal core consisting of 9–15 wt% of light elements, chiefly S, C, O, and H.
Credit
©2023 Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) - Thibaut Roger - NCCR PlanetS - ETH Zurich.
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Credit must be given to the creator. Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted. Adaptations must be shared under the same terms.
License
CC BY-NC-SA