In historic first, NASA spacecraft maps what lurks below surface of Mars - CNET

NASA's InSight lander has allowed planetary scientists to map the interior of another planet for the first time.

When Galileo observed the planet Mars with a telescope over 400 years ago, it registered as little more than a blank orb, hanging in the infinite dark.

In a series of three studies published in the journal Science on Thursday, a global team of researchers describe the interior of Mars using data obtained by InSight's seismometer, an instrument that responds to vibrations and noise under Mars' surface.

Analyzing a series of marsquakes, felt by InSight since 2019, researchers have been able to reveal the inner workings of another planet in our solar system for the first time -- a breakthrough for planetary geoscience. .

It rests on the Martian soil and, as NASA says, is like a doctor's stethoscope, listening into the "pulse" of the planet.

Most originate in the upper layer of the planet's crust, but the studies probed 10 that originated from deeper below the surface.

Listening to the waves generated by these quakes is how researchers came to understand Mars' innards.

The anatomy of a "differentiated" planet like Mars is, to borrow from a 20-year-old film, just like an onion (...or an ogre).

One of the studies, led by Brigitte Knapmeyer-Endrun, a geophysicist at the University of Cologne, used the data to study the uppermost layer of the planet, known as the crust.

Heat emanates from the core of a planet during its formation and early evolution and by understanding the composition of the core, researchers can hypothesize how Mars may have cooled over time

InSight also attempted to take a direct measure of the temperature below the surface of the red planet using a "burrowing mole." But early on, as the mole attempted to dig into Mars' crazy soil, it got stuck