The paper ‘The shallow structure of Mars at the InSight landing site from inversion of ambient vibrations’ was published in Nature Communications on November 23, 2021.
Below these top layers, they identified around 150 meters of basaltic rocks, i.e., cooled and solidified lava flows, which was largely consistent with the expected subsurface structure.To date the shallower lava flows, the authors used crater counts from existing literature.They found that the shallower lava flows are approximately 1.7 billion years old, forming during the Amazonian period – a geological era on Mars characterized by low rates of meteorite and asteroid impacts and by cold, hyper-arid conditions, which began approximately 3 billion years ago.Knapmeyer-Endrun had already developed models of the velocity structure of the shallow subsurface at the InSight landing site based on terrestrial analogs.
Knowledge of the properties of the shallow subsurface is required to assess, for example, its load-bearing capacity and trafficability for rovers.
Within the framework of his doctoral research at the University of Cologne, Sebastian Carrasco will continue to analyze the effect of the shallow structure of Elysium Planitia on marsquake recordings.
The InSight lander arrived on Mars on November 26, 2018, touching down in the Elysium Planitia region.Mars has been the target of numerous planetary science missions, but the InSight mission is the first to specifically measure the subsurface using seismic methods. .
Reference: “The shallow structure of Mars at the InSight landing site from inversion of ambient vibrations” by M.Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built the InSight spacecraft, including its cruise stage and lander, and supports spacecraft operations for the mission.
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