Mars Insight Mission Finds Evidence for a Molten Layer Covering the Martian Core

While geologists have been studying our own planet’s interior using seismic waves for over a century, it has only been over the past few decades that we’ve developed the technology to be able to do so on other worlds. A recent look at seismic data from a meteorite impact provides information about a newly discovered layer of molten rock surrounding the Martian core.

A mosaic of 102 images taken by the Viking Orbiter in 2013. Mars’ large canyon system, Valles Marineris, takes center stage in the middle of the image. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

A Liquid Layer Around the Martian Core

The earliest detection of Mars’ liquid core dates all the way back to 2003, when scientists using radio data from the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft found that Mars has either a completely liquid core that had not completely cooled or a liquid outer core with a solid inner core. More recent data from the Mars InSight lander from a set of studies published in 2021 in suggested that this core was much larger than expected, a whopping 2,235 miles in diameter, or about half the size of the planet itself.

Concept art of NASA’s InSight lander on the surface of Mars deploying its instruments. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

InSight, short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, was a lander mission aimed at understanding Mars’ interior conditions…