Meteorite impacts show Mars’s crust is denser than we thought

The author is Jacklin Kwan.

We don't know the Red Planet's crust as well as we thought after the impacts of two meteorites There are parts of it that are denser than expected.

Waves from the meteorite impacts were picked up by NASA. It is the first time we have ever measured waves on the surface of another planet, and they give us a glimpse of the Mars surface.

The InSight landers was on Mars when it detected the waves. The geological characteristics of the material can be revealed by the waves' speed.

The surface waves coming from the meteorite impact sites were moving at a faster rate than expected, according to Doyeon Kim.

Read more: James Webb Space Telescope captures its first pictures of Mars

Until the impacts, InSight had only been able to study the waves that traveled up towards the landers. Beneath the landing site, there were three distinct layers.

The team found that this type of structure was not representative of Mars as a whole and that the surface waves were denser than what had been detected.

When we look at the surface waves, the crustal structure is very different from the landers.

Kim said a few things could have increased the wave velocities as they traveled along the surface to the probe, including the presence of a water table beneath Mars. The denser the mix would be if there were gaps between the solid matter. It is possible that there is a unique feature below the probe that is not found elsewhere on Mars.

The opportunity to study the shallow structure of Mars was given by the meteorites. The paper shows that we aren't seeing the whole of Mars by looking straight down.

The journal's title is "science."

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