Mars Has a Secret Underground And Scientists Just Unlocked It

Bright Side

You won't believe what scientists just found out about Marsquakes! Turns out, a bunch of them aren’t even from underground—they’re actually caused by meteorite impacts. Using AI and data from NASA’s InSight mission, researchers linked 49 quakes to space rocks slamming into the surface. That means Mars is getting hit 2.5 times more than we thought, with new craters popping up all the time. But here’s the wild part: those impacts send shockwaves deep into the planet through something called a “seismic highway.” It’s showing us that Mars is way more unstable beneath the surface than we ever imagined.  Credit: Olympus Mons - ESA Mars Express: By ESA/DLR/FUBerlin/AndreaLuck, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/igo/, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Olympus_Mons_-_ESA_Mars_Express_-_Flickr_-_Andrea_Luck.png First Context Camera Image of Mars: By NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS, https://science.nasa.gov/resource/first-context-camera-image-of-mars/ Context Camera Views an Impact Crater: By NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS, https://science.nasa.gov/resource/context-camera-views-an-impact-crater-in-amazonis-planitia/ HiRISE Views Impact Crater Matching InSight’s Seismic Data: By  NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona, https://science.nasa.gov/resource/hirise-views-impact-crater-matching-insights-seismic-data/ Animation is created by Bright Side.  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/   Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV  Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  Our Social Media:  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightplanet/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official  TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en   Stock materials (photos, footages and other):  https://www.depositphotos.com  https://www.shutterstock.com  https://www.eastnews.ru  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.

Transcript

00:00The red, parched Earth under your feet is shaking.

00:03Large cracks are opening in the ground, threatening to swallow you.

00:08But unlike on Earth, these quakes aren't coming from within the planet.

00:12A threat coming from space is triggering them.

00:16Scientists have made a shocking discovery about Mars quakes.

00:20By using AI and NASA's InSight data,

00:23they found out that some of those tremors are caused by meteorite impacts.

00:27It means that Mars gets hit two and a half times more often than we thought.

00:32And new craters are forming all the time.

00:35But the scariest part is that these impacts don't just shake the ground.

00:39They send powerful shockwaves deep into the planet,

00:42revealing a hidden seismic highway and an unstable interior, unlike anything we imagined.

00:48This changes everything we thought we knew about Mars.

00:52So now, the big question is, what else is lurking beneath the surface?

00:56But let's follow scientists' train of thought first.

01:00They took Mars quake data from NASA's InSight lander

01:03and compared it with fresh impact craters spotted by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

01:08That's when they discovered that some impacts create a seismic highway through the mantle

01:13instead of being absorbed by the crust.

01:16Even though NASA shut down InSight in 2022, its data is still precious.

01:21The lander, which placed a seismometer on Mars, recorded over 1,300 Mars quakes,

01:28some caused by underground rock cracking under heat and pressure,

01:32others, apparently, by meteoroids slamming into the surface of the red planet.

01:37By studying how seismic waves move through the crust, mantle, and core,

01:43scientists keep piecing together Mars' deep structure.

01:45In the past, researchers already linked impact craters with seismic data.

01:51But these new studies are the first time when a fresh impact has been connected to quakes

01:56detected in Cerberus Fossi.

01:59That's a highly active region a thousand miles away from InSight.

02:03Scientists have discovered this 71-foot-wide crater much farther from NASA's InSight lander than expected,

02:09if we consider the strength of the seismic waves it produced.

02:12Mars' crust was thought to absorb most of the energy from impacts,

02:17which would limit how far seismic waves could travel.

02:20But the analysis of this crater revealed that, instead of getting dampened,

02:25the waves took a more direct and deeper path through the planet's mantle.

02:29This unexpected finding suggests that Mars has a seismic highway

02:33which allows quakes to spread much farther than previously believed.

02:37Now, the InSight team will need to reassess their models of Mars' internal composition and structure.

02:44And then, we might better understand how impact-generated seismic signals can reach such depths.

02:51Manually sorting through the vast amount of data would have taken years.

02:54But luckily, these days, there are new tools,

02:57and scientists can go from tens of thousands of images to just a few in a matter of days.

03:02So, researchers focused on finding craters within approximately 1,800 miles of InSight's location.

03:10Their aim was to identify those that formed while the lander's seismometer was active.

03:15By comparing before and after images from the context camera over time,

03:20they identified 123 fresh craters to cross-reference with InSight's seismic data.

03:26Out of those, 49 craters were potential matches for quakes detected by InSight's seismometer.

03:31And after conducting some more analysis,

03:34the team decided that the 71-foot Cerberus Fossi impact crater was the main finding.

03:40This discovery is likely to help scientists differentiate

03:43between signals from internal quakes and those caused by meteoroid impacts.

03:48Initially, they believed that Cerberus Fossi produced a lot of high-frequency seismic signals

03:53linked to quakes originating inside Mars.

03:56But the new data suggests that some of this activity may have been caused by impacts,

04:02not internal processes.

04:05Another mystery scientists haven't been able to crack for 50 years

04:08is why Mars is split into two very different halves.

04:12But thanks to recordings of Marsquakes, they may have finally found the answer.

04:17Since the 1970s, researchers have known that Mars has two distinct regions.

04:22The northern lowlands cover about two-thirds of the planet's northern hemisphere,

04:27and the southern highlands make up the rest.

04:30The southern highlands sit about three miles higher than the northern lowlands,

04:34and the crust, the planet's outer layer, like a shell, is thicker in the south.

04:39This strange divide is known as the Martian dichotomy.

04:43There are two potential explanations for this imbalance.

04:46One theory suggests that an unknown internal process within Mars created the difference.

04:52The other claims that a massive collision,

04:55probably with a moon-sized space rock or several smaller impacts,

04:59once reshaped the planet's surface.

05:01But Mars' surface is extremely old.

05:04That's why pinpointing exactly what happened has been difficult.

05:07But now, a new study, published on December 27th, 2024,

05:12has used Marsquake data from NASA's InSight lander

05:15to figure out whether the cause of this difference lies deep inside the planet.

05:20InSight was positioned near the boundary between the northern lowlands and southern highlands.

05:26Its mission included recording seismic data from Marsquakes,

05:29which travel through the planet's mantle, the rock layer beneath the crust.

05:33So scientists compared how these waves moved under both lowlands and highlands.

05:38They looked for differences in the planet's deep interior.

05:42It turns out that the seismic waves lost energy much faster

05:46when traveling through the southern highlands.

05:48It means that the mantle beneath this region is significantly hotter than in the north.

05:54It's compelling evidence that internal planetary forces,

05:57rather than an external impact, cause Mars' unusual split.

06:01The research team believes that the temperature difference between Mars' two halves

06:06can be traced back to ancient tectonic activity.

06:09It once shaped the planet, but later stopped.

06:12At some point in the past, Mars had moving tectonic plates, like Earth's.

06:17As these plates shifted, they, along with the molten rock beneath them,

06:21could have created the Martian dichotomy.

06:24But eventually, the movement stopped,

06:26leaving behind what scientists call a stagnant lid.

06:29That's a thick, immobile layer over the planet's molten interior.

06:34If this turns out to be true,

06:36it might mean that the mantle beneath the southern highlands is still pushing upward,

06:40while the mantle under the northern lowlands is sinking deeper toward the planet's core.

06:45This ongoing process could explain why Mars' crust is thicker in the south.

06:51At the same time, we can't completely rule out the idea

06:54that an external impact created the dichotomy.

06:57Some recent studies suggest that a giant collision could still be a possible explanation.

07:03To solve this mystery for good, scientists will need more Marsquake data

07:07and detailed models of how Mars originally formed.

07:11By the way, if you ever decide to visit Mars,

07:14you might come across the hero of our video today,

07:17the InSight lander itself.

07:19It was supposed to launch in March 2016,

07:21but a problem with one of its instruments caused a delay.

07:25It was a vacuum leak in the seismometer.

07:28NASA rescheduled the launch for May 2018,

07:31and the issue was fixed in the meantime.

07:34But this delay increased the total cost from $675 million to $830 million.

07:40Still, InSight successfully landed on Mars on November 26, 2018.

07:45But over time, dust built up on its solar panels,

07:49making it harder to recharge.

07:51The InSight lander runs on solar panels and batteries,

07:54but it needs occasional wind gusts, called cleaning events,

07:58to clear dust from the panels.

08:00Unfortunately, the place where InSight landed

08:02didn't get enough of these winds to keep the lander fully powered.

08:06By February 2021, during the Martian winter,

08:09thick dust had covered the panels,

08:11and they were only producing 27% of their full capacity.

08:15To save power,

08:16NASA started putting InSight into hibernation mode,

08:19shutting down instruments gradually to keep its electronics warm.

08:23They hoped better weather would allow the lander to recharge

08:26and wake up by July 2021.

08:29In May 2021,

08:30the team found a clever way to restore some power

08:33by using the lander's arm to move sand onto the panels,

08:37helping the wind clean off some of the dust.

08:39But, eventually,

08:42InSight was only generating one-tenth of the power from the sunlight

08:45than it did right upon arrival.

08:47In July 2022,

08:49NASA put it in low-power mode to keep detecting Mars quakes.

08:53The lander kept operating until December 2022.

08:57On December 20th,

08:58NASA announced that InSight had lost contact with Earth on December 15th,

09:02and the mission officially ended on December 21st, 2022.

09:07That's it for today.

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