Ever wondered what's hiding beneath the rusty surface of Mars? Thanks to NASA's InSight lander, we've just had our minds blown: Mars’ mantle isn't smooth—it's dotted with giant lumps of ancient rock! 🤯
These chunky fragments are leftovers from massive asteroid impacts 4.5 billion years ago. When those cosmic giants collided, they melted huge swaths of Martian crust into magma oceans and shot debris deep into the planet’s interior. Today, these lumps can be as big as 4 kilometers across!
InSight, which touched down on Mars in 2018, listened in on 1,319 marsquakes before its mission wrapped up in 2022. By analyzing the seismic ripples, scientists mapped out these hidden boulders scattered throughout the mantle.
"We've never seen the inside of a planet in such fine detail and clarity before," says Constantinos Charalambous of Imperial College London, the study's lead author. "What we're seeing is a mantle studded with ancient fragments. Their survival to this day tells us Mars' mantle has evolved sluggishly over billions of years. On Earth, features like these may well have been largely erased."
These discoveries are more than cool space trivia—they help us piece together how rocky planets grow and evolve. And who knows? Maybe one day, vibrations from a future Martian colony’s coffee machine will uncover even more secrets! ☕🔭
Reference(s):
cgtn.com
