Shocking Facts About Mars That Will Be Human Habitat

Their paper is titled “Minimal cementitious shallow crust beneath insight.”

“This finding doesn’t rule out the possibility of ice particles or small ice balls that don’t bind other minerals together,” Wright said. “The question is, how likely is ice to exist in this form?” National Geographic,

Second surprise: This goes against the core idea of ​​what happens to water on Mars. The Red Planet may have harbored oceans early in its history.

Many experts suspect that most of the water becomes part of the minerals that make up underground cement.

“If you put water in contact with rock, a new set of minerals is created. Like soil, water is not a liquid.

It’s part of the mineral composition,” said co-author Michael Manga of the University of California, Berkeley. “There is some cement, but no cement in the stone. “

“Water can also get into minerals that don’t act as cement. But an unincorporated subterranean formation eliminates a way to preserve records of life or biological activity,” Wright said.

Cement basically holds rock and sediment together, protecting them from damaging erosion.

The lack of cementitious sediments indicates a lack of water 300 m below the InSight landing site near the equator.

Below-average freezing temperatures at the Martian equator mean that if there was water, conditions would be cold enough that the water would freeze.

Groundwater on Mars exceeds expectations: Physics links seismic data to rock and sediment properties.

Many planetary scientists, including comics, have long suspected that Mars’ subsurface would be full of ice.

His doubts were resolved. However, large ice sheets and frozen ice cubes remain at the poles of Mars.

The InSight spacecraft touched down in 2018 on Elysium Planitia, a flat, smooth plain near the Martian equator.

Its instruments include a seismometer to measure vibrations caused by earthquakes and impacting meteorites.

Scientists can link this information with a wealth of knowledge about the surface.

An image containing data on the Martian landscape and temperature. Surface data suggest that the subsurface may consist of sedimentary rocks and lava flows.

However, the team had to account for uncertainties in subsurface properties, such as porosity and mineral content.

Seismic waves from Martian quakes provide clues about the nature of the material they pass through.

Possible cementitious minerals such as calcite, clay, kaolinite and gypsum. All of these affect earthquake speed.

Wright’s team at Scripps Oceanography applied computer models of petrophysics to explain the velocities derived from the Insight data.

“We ran each model 10,000 times to incorporate uncertainty into our answers,” said co-author Richard Kilburn, a graduate student in the Wright-led Scripps Tectonorocphysics Lab.

Simulations showing that the subsurface is mainly composed of non-cemented material are best for the data.

Scientists want to probe beneath the surface of Mars. Because if there was life on Mars, it would be there.

Without liquid water on the surface, life below the surface would be protected from radiation.

After the sample return mission, NASA’s top priority for the next decade is the idea of ​​a Mars Life Explorer mission.

The goal is to drill two meters into the Martian crust at high latitudes and look for life combined with ice, rock and atmosphere.