Mars once had rivers of magma bubbling beneath its crust, new research suggests. The surprise find makes it more probable that Mars could have supported life and widens the selection of rocky planets that may once have been habitable.
Researchers at the University of Oxford studied data gathered by Nasa’s Insight Lander, which recorded seismic waves caused by meteorite impacts and Martian quakes. They used the seismic data to analyse a mysterious boundary 15 miles (24km) below the surface of Mars. Their findings, published in Nature Astronomy, showed that the most likely cause for this boundary was molten rock pooling deep underground and stretching sideways for hundreds or even thousands of miles.
Scientists had previously assumed that the volcanoes on Mars were underlain by simple isolated magma chambers, but the new finding suggests a more complex interconnected plumbing system. Such a system would have the potential to make a chemically complex crust, capable of recycling elements and supporting the kind of processes needed to generate an atmosphere and ocean on the surface.
This would also help to regulate the climate – previously thought only to be possible on planets with plate tectonics. And that means rocky planets previously dismissed as uninhabitable because of their lack of plate tectonics now deserve a second look.
