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transcription of Martian seism , or " marsquakes , " collected by a automaton on the Red Planet may have at long last lick a 50 - twelvemonth - honest-to-god mystery : why one half of Mars is so drastically different from the other .
Since the seventies , researchers have known that Mars is separate into two chief arena . The northern lowlands cover around two - third of the planet ’s northerly hemisphere , while the southern highlands track the eternal sleep of the planet and have an average meridian roughly 3 miles ( 5 klick ) higher than that of the northern lowlands . Mars ' crust , which sit on top of a mantlepiece of molten rock similar tothe one inside Earth , is also thicker in the southern upland . This planetary imbalance is know as the " Martian dichotomy . "
There is a stark difference between the elevation of Mars' surface in the planet’s northern and southern hemispheres. Researchers call this the Martian dichotomy.
There are two main theory for the origin of the Martian dichotomy . One is that the watershed was make by some unknown process within the major planet ’s inside . The other is that a monumental hit with a moon - size object or multiple smaller space rocks reshaped the planet ’s aerofoil . However , the years of the rock on the Martian surface hint that whatever caused the imbalance happen in the very early days of thesolar system , which makes it hard to determine the exact causal agent .
But in a new study published Dec. 27 , 2024 , in the journalGeophysical Research Letters , researchers analyse data fromNASA ’s InSight lander , which show how seismal wave from marsquakes reverberate within the planet , to see if they could detect any evidence of an interior origin for the Martian dichotomy .
InSight is located near the edge between the northerly lowlands and the southern Highlands of Scotland , which allowed the squad to compare how seismic waves moved through the mantle below two sites : one on each side of the divide .
Martian dichotomy has been one of the biggest mysteries surrounding the Red Planet over the past 50 years.
Related:10 awful thing we found on Mars in 2024
" compare these two [ sites ] exhibit that the wave lost energy more quickly in the southerly Highlands of Scotland , " the survey authors wrote inThe Conversation . " The most likely account is that the [ molten ] rock beneath the southern upland is hotter than in the due north . "
" This temperature difference between the two half of the duality supports the idea that the snag was because of internal forces on Mars , not some extraneous impact , " they add together .
Internal origin vs. external impact
The subject area team thinks this temperature difference can be explained by ancient tectonic natural action that has since disappeared from Mars .
" At one point , Mars had movingtectonic plateslike Earth does , " the researchers wrote . " The front of these plates and the liquified rock beneath them could have created something like the dichotomy , which was then immobilize in berth when the tectonic shell check moving to shape what scientists call a " stagnant eyelid " on the major planet ’s molten interior . "
In this scenario , the magma beneath the South is constantly being pushed up against the incrustation , while the magma below the North is sinking toward the planet ’s core . This would also explain why the planet ’s crust is thicker in the South , the researchers added .
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However , it may be too early to rule out the outside encroachment scenario , which somerecent studieshave evince to be potentially viable .
" To conclusively answer the question of what have the Martian dichotomy , we will require more marsquake data , as well as detailed models of how Mars constitute , " the researchers write . " However , our study reveals an important novel piece of the puzzle . "
