The Nasa-led mission reveals the average thickness of Mars' crust to be between 24km and 72km - somewhat thinner than had been expected. This is

Nasa probe determines Mars' internal structure

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2021-07-23 16:30:05

The Nasa-led mission reveals the average thickness of Mars' crust to be between 24km and 72km - somewhat thinner than had been expected.

This is the first time science has managed to directly map the internal layering of a planet apart from the Earth. It's been done also for the Moon, but Mars (total radius: 3,390km) is on a much larger scale.

Insight achieved its results in the same way that seismologists study internal layering on Earth - by tracking the signals from quakes.

These events release waves of energy. Changes in the path and velocity of the waves will betray the nature of the rocky materials through which they are passing.

The seismometer system deployed by the Nasa probe has observed hundreds of tremors, with a handful over the past two years having just the right properties to "image" Mars' interior.

The instrument team, which is led from France and the UK, determines the rigid outer part, or crust, of Mars to be either 20km or 39km thick directly under the probe (depending on the precise sub-layering that exists). Extrapolating to the known surface geology of the rest of the planet, this suggests an average thickness of between 24km and 72km. By contrast, Earth's average crustal thickness is 15-20km. Only in a continental region like the Himalayas can it reach 70km.

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