At midnight on Mars, the red planet’s magnetic field sometimes starts to pulsate in ways that have never before been observed. The cause is currently unknown.
That’s just one of the stunning preliminary findings from NASA’s very first robotic geophysicist there, the InSight lander. Since touching down in November 2018, this spacecraft has been gathering intel to help scientists better understand our neighboring planet’s innards and evolution, such as taking the temperature of its upper crust, recording the sounds of alien quakes, and measuring the strength and direction of the planet’s magnetic field.
As revealed during a handful of presentations this week at a joint meeting of the European Planetary Science Congress and the American Astronomical Society, the early data suggest the magnetic machinations of Mars are marvelously mad.
How NASA’s next Mars mission will take the red planet’s pulse On November 26th, 2018, NASA’s InSight spacecraft is set to touch down on Mars after completing a 205-day orbit in space. Learn about the three distinct ways this groundbreaking mission will study the deep interior of the red planet in the latest video from Decoder.
For more, read ‘Taking the Pulse of the Red Planet’ in the November 2018 issue of National Geographic Magazine.
In addition to the odd magnetic pulsations, the lander’s data show that the Martian crust is far more powerfully magnetic than scientists expected. What’s more, the lander has picked up on a very peculiar electrically conductive layer, about 2.5 miles thick, deep beneath the planet’s surface. It’s far too early to say with any certainty, but there is a chance that this layer could represent a global reservoir of liquid water.