Posted on 03/30/2021 1:56:46 PM PDT by BenLurkin
The measurement suggests that the radius of the Martian core is 1,810 to 1,860 kilometres, roughly half that of Earth’s. That’s larger than some previous estimates, meaning the core is less dense than had been predicted. The finding suggests the core must contain lighter elements, such as oxygen, in addition to the iron and sulfur that constitute much of its make-up. InSight scientists reported their measurements in several presentations this week at the virtual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, based out of Houston, Texas.
Rocky planets such as Earth and Mars are divided into the fundamental layers of crust, mantle and core. Knowing the size of each of those layers is crucial to understanding how the planet formed and evolved. InSight’s measurements will help scientists to determine how Mars’s dense, metal-rich core separated from the overlying rocky mantle as the planet cooled. The core is probably still molten from Mars’s fiery birth, some 4.5 billion years ago.
Similar to Earth, Mars once had a strong magnetic field generated by liquid sloshing around its core, but that magnetic field dropped dramatically over time, causing Mars’s atmosphere to escape into space and the surface to become cold, barren and much less hospitable to life than Earth’s.
Just as seismometers do on Earth, InSight measures the size of the Martian core by studying seismic waves that have bounced off the deep boundary between the mantle and the core. With information from enough of these deep-travelling waves, InSight scientists were able to calculate the depth of the core–mantle boundary and hence the size of the core. The seismic data also suggest that the upper mantle, which extends to around 700 to 800 kilometres below the surface, contains a zone of thickened material in which seismic energy travels more slowly.
(Excerpt) Read more at nature.com ...
In before “Size Matters”
That's where the aliens live. They have a reactor that will melt ice and create an atmosphere on Mars. What did you really think that aliens traveled light years across the universe just to build pyramids?
You beat me to it.
So now we just need to make it spin.
This brings to mind memories of when the Mars bar was ginormous and only cost a nickel...
Now it is plastic-contaminated-penis size and costs about $1.35...
Even larger than Uranus.
Is your...ahem...male member...not ginormous?
I want one of those rock phase discombobulator gizmo’s.
I could dig a whole in the back yard and see if there are any valuable minerals there.
And then I can dig under the neighbor’s house, the street, the post office,
It’s spinning now. One revolution every 24 hours and 40 minutes, more or less.
The problem is, it’s solid, so it’s all spinning at the same rate as everything else on the planet, so no magnetic field.
At my age, I’m almost too afraid to check...😕
Waiting for the intellects, vast, cool, unsympathetic.
Nougat?!!! Okay, I'm in! Where do I sign up!!
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