The orbiters who wore the radar hardware, together with one or two others, are long enough in a job for major changes in Mars's gravity caused by ice accumulation or crust displacement in their orbital behavior would have been demonstrated. The orbital changes they see, “indicates that the increase in gravitational potential associated with long -term ice accumulation is higher than the decrease in the gravity potential of downward deflection.” They calculate that the distortion must be less than 0.13 millimeters per year to be consistent with the gravity signal.
Finally, the model had to have realistic conditions with the Pool -IJskap, with a density that is consistent with a mixture of ice and dust.
Of those 84 models, only three were consistent with all these limitations. All three had a very fishing choice Martian interior, consistent with a relatively cold interior. That is no surprise, given what we have already derived of the history of Mars. But it also suggests that most radioactive elements that offer heat to the red planet are in the crust, instead of deeper in the interior. That is something that we might have been able to check if the Insight's Temperature Measurement Experiment was used correctly. But the way it is, we will have to wait for a non -mischievous future mission to get a picture of Mars' heat dynamics.
In any case, the models also suggest that Mars's polar ice sheet is less than 10 million years old, consistent with the orbital driven climate models.
In many ways, the new information is an update of previous attempts to model the Martian interior, given a few years of orbital data and the information obtained from the Insight Lander, who also determined the thickness of the crust of Mars and the size of the core of Mars. But it is also a good way to understand how scientists can take pieces and pieces of information from apparently non -related sources and be able to build in a coherent image.
Nature, 2025. DOI: 10.1038/S41586-024-08565-9 (about Dois).
