Mars’s liquid iron core is likely to be surrounded by a fully molten silicate layer.
The InSight Mars Lander used an instrument called the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) to record seismic waves passing through Mars’s interior.
Unlike Earth, Mars has a molten layer around its core.
The new studies found that the liquid iron-nickel core of Mars is surrounded by an approximately 150 km-thick layer of near-molten silicate rock.
This top layer was previously misinterpreted as the surface of the core.
The size of the core, to be about 30% smaller in volume than previously thought, with a diameter of about 2,080 miles.