NASA InSight data reveals ancient magma oceans beneath Mars's crust, reshaping theories of planetary habitability
By
Keith Cooper
Summary
NASA's InSight mission has detected seismic waves revealing a boundary 15 miles deep inside Mars, indicating that deep oceans of magma once existed beneath the planet's crust. These magma pools formed two distinct types of rock layers, suggesting Mars developed a complex crust without plate tectonics. This discovery challenges previous assumptions about Mars's early development and has implications for planetary habitability — if such complexity can emerge without plate tectonics, habitable conditions might arise on more planets than previously thought.
Source
Twitter / XNASA InSight data reveals ancient magma oceans beneath Mars's crust, reshaping theories of planetary habitabilityspace.comKey quotes
· 3 pulledIf Mars could develop this kind of complex crust without plate tectonics, then maybe the conditions needed for habitability can emerge on more planets than we realized.
The marsquakes detected by InSight show a boundary 15 miles (24 kilometers) deep between two different types of rock that were formed by enormous pools of magma.
The presence of these magma pools could completely change what we thought we knew about the early development of Mars.
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