First observations of core-transiting seismic phases on Mars

Jessica C E Irving; Vedran Lekić; Cecilia Duran; Mélanie Drilleau; Doyeon Kim; Attilio Rivoldini; Amir Khan; Henri Samuel; Daniele Antonangeli; W. Bruce Banerdt; Caroline Begheim; Ebru Bozday; Savas Ceylan; Constantinos Charalambous; John Clinton; Paul M Davis; Raphaël Garcia; Domenico  Giardini; Anna C Horleston; Quancheng Huang; Kenneth Hurst; Taichi Kawamura; Scott King; Martin Knapmeyer; Jiaqi Li; Philippe Lognonné; Ross Maguire; Mark Panning; Ana Catalina Plesa; Martin Schimmel; Nicholas Schmerr; Simon C. Stähler; Eléonore Stutzmann; Zongbo Xu

doi:10.1073/pnas.2217090120

First observations of core-transiting seismic phases on Mars

Jessica C E Irving^*, Vedran Lekić, Cecilia Duran, Mélanie Drilleau, Doyeon Kim, Attilio Rivoldini, Amir Khan, Henri Samuel, Daniele Antonangeli, W. Bruce Banerdt, Caroline Begheim, Ebru Bozday, Savas Ceylan, Constantinos Charalambous, John Clinton, Paul M Davis, Raphaël Garcia, Domenico Giardini, Anna C Horleston, Quancheng HuangKenneth Hurst, Taichi Kawamura, Scott King, Martin Knapmeyer, Jiaqi Li, Philippe Lognonné, Ross Maguire, Mark Panning, Ana Catalina Plesa, Martin Schimmel, Nicholas Schmerr, Simon C. Stähler, Eléonore Stutzmann, Zongbo Xu

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article (Academic Journal) › peer-review

32 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We present the first observations of seismic waves propagating through the core of Mars. These observations, made using seismic data collected by the InSight geophysical mission, have allowed us to construct the first seismically constrained models for the elastic properties of Mars’ core. We observe core-transiting seismic phase SKS from two farside seismic events detected on Mars and measure the travel times of SKS relative to mantle traversing body waves. SKS travels through the core as a compressional wave, providing information about bulk modulus and density. We perform probabilistic inversions using the core-sensitive relative travel times together with gross geophysical data and travel times from other, more proximal, seismic events to seek the equation of state parameters that best describe the liquid iron-alloy core. Our inversions provide constraints on the velocities in Mars’ core and are used to develop the first seismically based estimates of its composition. We show that models informed by our SKS data favor a somewhat smaller (median core radius = 1,780 to 1,810 km) and denser (core density = 6.2 to 6.3 g/cm3) core compared to previous estimates, with a P-wave velocity of 4.9 to 5.0 km/s at the core–mantle boundary, with the composition and structure of the mantle as a dominant source of uncertainty. We infer from our models that Mars’ core contains a median of 20 to 22 wt% light alloying elements when we consider sulfur, oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen. These data can be used to inform models of planetary accretion, composition, and evolution.

Original language	English
Article number	e2217090120
Journal	Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Volume	120
Issue number	118
Early online date	24 Apr 2023
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2217090120
Publication status	Published - 2 May 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
W.B.B., K.J.H, and M.P.P. were supported by the NASA InSight mission and funds from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the NASA (80NM0018D0004). V.L. and N.C.S. were supported by funding from NASA grant 80NSSC18K1628 and NASA SSERVI Cooperative Agreement 80NSSC19M0216. C.D., A.K., D.G., S.C., J.C., D.K., and S.C.S. acknowledge support from ETH through the ETH+ funding scheme (ETH+02 19-1: “Planet Mars”). The Marsquake Service (MQS) operations at ETH are supported by ETH Research grant ETH-06 17-02. M.D., H.S., D.A., R.G., T.K., P.L., E.S., and Z.X. acknowledge the support of CNES for SEIS operation and science analysis, with an additional support of ANR (MAGIS, ANR-19-CE31-0008-08). H.S., T.K., P.L. E.S., and Z.X. additionally acknowledge the support from the IdEx Université Paris Cité (ANR-18-IDEX-0001). M.D. and H.S. were granted access to the HPC resources of CINES under the allocation A0110413017, made by the GENCI. Numerical computations were partly performed on the S-CAPAD/DANTE platform, IPGP, France. D.A. has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement 724690); D.A. also acknowledges the support by CNES, focused on the SEIS instrument of the InSight mission. A.R. was financially supported by the Belgian PRODEX program managed by the European Space Agency in collaboration with the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office. E.B. and Q.H. were funded by NASA InSight PSP grant #80NSSC18K1680. C.B. and J.L. were funded by NASA

Funding Information:
InSight PSP grant #80NSSC18K1679. S. D. K. was funded by NASA InSight PSP grant #80NSSC18K1623. A.-C.P. gratefully acknowledges the financial support and endorsement from the DLR Management Board Young Research Group Leader Program and the Executive Board Member for Space Research and Technology. M.K. is funded by DLR. This paper is InSight contribution number 250.

Funding Information:
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. We thank two anonymous reviewers and the editor for their thoughtful and constructive comments. We acknowledge NASA, CNES, their partner agencies and Institutions (UKSA, SSO, DLR, JPL, IPGP-CNRS, ETHZ, IC, MPS-MPG), and the flight operations team at JPL, SISMOC, MSDS, IRIS-DMC, and PDS for providing SEED SEIS data. J.C.E.I. and A.H. are funded by the UKSA under grant numbers ST/W002515/1, ST/R002096/1, and ST/W002523/1. C.C. is funded by the UKSA under grant number ST/V00638X/1.

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© 2023 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

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Exploring Mars' Core with InSight Seismic Data Yrs2+3
Irving, J. C. E. (Principal Investigator)
1/04/21 → 31/03/24
Project: Research, Parent

Cite this

Irving, J. C. E., Lekić, V., Duran, C., Drilleau, M., Kim, D., Rivoldini, A., Khan, A., Samuel, H., Antonangeli, D., Banerdt, W. B., Begheim, C., Bozday, E., Ceylan, S., Charalambous, C., Clinton, J., Davis, P. M., Garcia, R., Giardini, D., Horleston, A. C., ... Xu, Z. (2023). First observations of core-transiting seismic phases on Mars. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(118), Article e2217090120. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2217090120

@article{b346dbadacf54d628cbb0a2472d0ca0b,

title = "First observations of core-transiting seismic phases on Mars",

abstract = "We present the first observations of seismic waves propagating through the core of Mars. These observations, made using seismic data collected by the InSight geophysical mission, have allowed us to construct the first seismically constrained models for the elastic properties of Mars{\textquoteright} core. We observe core-transiting seismic phase SKS from two farside seismic events detected on Mars and measure the travel times of SKS relative to mantle traversing body waves. SKS travels through the core as a compressional wave, providing information about bulk modulus and density. We perform probabilistic inversions using the core-sensitive relative travel times together with gross geophysical data and travel times from other, more proximal, seismic events to seek the equation of state parameters that best describe the liquid iron-alloy core. Our inversions provide constraints on the velocities in Mars{\textquoteright} core and are used to develop the first seismically based estimates of its composition. We show that models informed by our SKS data favor a somewhat smaller (median core radius = 1,780 to 1,810 km) and denser (core density = 6.2 to 6.3 g/cm3) core compared to previous estimates, with a P-wave velocity of 4.9 to 5.0 km/s at the core–mantle boundary, with the composition and structure of the mantle as a dominant source of uncertainty. We infer from our models that Mars{\textquoteright} core contains a median of 20 to 22 wt% light alloying elements when we consider sulfur, oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen. These data can be used to inform models of planetary accretion, composition, and evolution.",

author = "Irving, {Jessica C E} and Vedran Leki{\'c} and Cecilia Duran and M{\'e}lanie Drilleau and Doyeon Kim and Attilio Rivoldini and Amir Khan and Henri Samuel and Daniele Antonangeli and Banerdt, {W. Bruce} and Caroline Begheim and Ebru Bozday and Savas Ceylan and Constantinos Charalambous and John Clinton and Davis, {Paul M} and Rapha{\"e}l Garcia and Domenico Giardini and Horleston, {Anna C} and Quancheng Huang and Kenneth Hurst and Taichi Kawamura and Scott King and Martin Knapmeyer and Jiaqi Li and Philippe Lognonn{\'e} and Ross Maguire and Mark Panning and Plesa, {Ana Catalina} and Martin Schimmel and Nicholas Schmerr and St{\"a}hler, {Simon C.} and El{\'e}onore Stutzmann and Zongbo Xu",

note = "Funding Information: W.B.B., K.J.H, and M.P.P. were supported by the NASA InSight mission and funds from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the NASA (80NM0018D0004). V.L. and N.C.S. were supported by funding from NASA grant 80NSSC18K1628 and NASA SSERVI Cooperative Agreement 80NSSC19M0216. C.D., A.K., D.G., S.C., J.C., D.K., and S.C.S. acknowledge support from ETH through the ETH+ funding scheme (ETH+02 19-1: “Planet Mars”). The Marsquake Service (MQS) operations at ETH are supported by ETH Research grant ETH-06 17-02. M.D., H.S., D.A., R.G., T.K., P.L., E.S., and Z.X. acknowledge the support of CNES for SEIS operation and science analysis, with an additional support of ANR (MAGIS, ANR-19-CE31-0008-08). H.S., T.K., P.L. E.S., and Z.X. additionally acknowledge the support from the IdEx Universit{\'e} Paris Cit{\'e} (ANR-18-IDEX-0001). M.D. and H.S. were granted access to the HPC resources of CINES under the allocation A0110413017, made by the GENCI. Numerical computations were partly performed on the S-CAPAD/DANTE platform, IPGP, France. D.A. has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union{\textquoteright}s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement 724690); D.A. also acknowledges the support by CNES, focused on the SEIS instrument of the InSight mission. A.R. was financially supported by the Belgian PRODEX program managed by the European Space Agency in collaboration with the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office. E.B. and Q.H. were funded by NASA InSight PSP grant #80NSSC18K1680. C.B. and J.L. were funded by NASA Funding Information: InSight PSP grant #80NSSC18K1679. S. D. K. was funded by NASA InSight PSP grant #80NSSC18K1623. A.-C.P. gratefully acknowledges the financial support and endorsement from the DLR Management Board Young Research Group Leader Program and the Executive Board Member for Space Research and Technology. M.K. is funded by DLR. This paper is InSight contribution number 250. Funding Information: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. We thank two anonymous reviewers and the editor for their thoughtful and constructive comments. We acknowledge NASA, CNES, their partner agencies and Institutions (UKSA, SSO, DLR, JPL, IPGP-CNRS, ETHZ, IC, MPS-MPG), and the flight operations team at JPL, SISMOC, MSDS, IRIS-DMC, and PDS for providing SEED SEIS data. J.C.E.I. and A.H. are funded by the UKSA under grant numbers ST/W002515/1, ST/R002096/1, and ST/W002523/1. C.C. is funded by the UKSA under grant number ST/V00638X/1. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2023 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.",

year = "2023",

month = may,

day = "2",

doi = "10.1073/pnas.2217090120",

language = "English",

volume = "120",

journal = "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences",

issn = "0027-8424",

publisher = "National Academy of Sciences",

number = "118",

}

Irving, JCE, Lekić, V, Duran, C, Drilleau, M, Kim, D, Rivoldini, A, Khan, A, Samuel, H, Antonangeli, D, Banerdt, WB, Begheim, C, Bozday, E, Ceylan, S, Charalambous, C, Clinton, J, Davis, PM, Garcia, R, Giardini, D, Horleston, AC, Huang, Q, Hurst, K, Kawamura, T, King, S, Knapmeyer, M, Li, J, Lognonné, P, Maguire, R, Panning, M, Plesa, AC, Schimmel, M, Schmerr, N, Stähler, SC, Stutzmann, E & Xu, Z 2023, 'First observations of core-transiting seismic phases on Mars', Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 120, no. 118, e2217090120. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2217090120

TY - JOUR

T1 - First observations of core-transiting seismic phases on Mars

AU - Irving, Jessica C E

AU - Lekić, Vedran

AU - Duran, Cecilia

AU - Drilleau, Mélanie

AU - Kim, Doyeon

AU - Rivoldini, Attilio

AU - Khan, Amir

AU - Samuel, Henri

AU - Antonangeli, Daniele

AU - Banerdt, W. Bruce

AU - Begheim, Caroline

AU - Bozday, Ebru

AU - Ceylan, Savas

AU - Charalambous, Constantinos

AU - Clinton, John

AU - Davis, Paul M

AU - Garcia, Raphaël

AU - Giardini, Domenico

AU - Horleston, Anna C

AU - Huang, Quancheng

AU - Hurst, Kenneth

AU - Kawamura, Taichi

AU - King, Scott

AU - Knapmeyer, Martin

AU - Li, Jiaqi

AU - Lognonné, Philippe

AU - Maguire, Ross

AU - Panning, Mark

AU - Plesa, Ana Catalina

AU - Schimmel, Martin

AU - Schmerr, Nicholas

AU - Stähler, Simon C.

AU - Stutzmann, Eléonore

AU - Xu, Zongbo

N1 - Funding Information: W.B.B., K.J.H, and M.P.P. were supported by the NASA InSight mission and funds from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the NASA (80NM0018D0004). V.L. and N.C.S. were supported by funding from NASA grant 80NSSC18K1628 and NASA SSERVI Cooperative Agreement 80NSSC19M0216. C.D., A.K., D.G., S.C., J.C., D.K., and S.C.S. acknowledge support from ETH through the ETH+ funding scheme (ETH+02 19-1: “Planet Mars”). The Marsquake Service (MQS) operations at ETH are supported by ETH Research grant ETH-06 17-02. M.D., H.S., D.A., R.G., T.K., P.L., E.S., and Z.X. acknowledge the support of CNES for SEIS operation and science analysis, with an additional support of ANR (MAGIS, ANR-19-CE31-0008-08). H.S., T.K., P.L. E.S., and Z.X. additionally acknowledge the support from the IdEx Université Paris Cité (ANR-18-IDEX-0001). M.D. and H.S. were granted access to the HPC resources of CINES under the allocation A0110413017, made by the GENCI. Numerical computations were partly performed on the S-CAPAD/DANTE platform, IPGP, France. D.A. has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement 724690); D.A. also acknowledges the support by CNES, focused on the SEIS instrument of the InSight mission. A.R. was financially supported by the Belgian PRODEX program managed by the European Space Agency in collaboration with the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office. E.B. and Q.H. were funded by NASA InSight PSP grant #80NSSC18K1680. C.B. and J.L. were funded by NASA Funding Information: InSight PSP grant #80NSSC18K1679. S. D. K. was funded by NASA InSight PSP grant #80NSSC18K1623. A.-C.P. gratefully acknowledges the financial support and endorsement from the DLR Management Board Young Research Group Leader Program and the Executive Board Member for Space Research and Technology. M.K. is funded by DLR. This paper is InSight contribution number 250. Funding Information: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. We thank two anonymous reviewers and the editor for their thoughtful and constructive comments. We acknowledge NASA, CNES, their partner agencies and Institutions (UKSA, SSO, DLR, JPL, IPGP-CNRS, ETHZ, IC, MPS-MPG), and the flight operations team at JPL, SISMOC, MSDS, IRIS-DMC, and PDS for providing SEED SEIS data. J.C.E.I. and A.H. are funded by the UKSA under grant numbers ST/W002515/1, ST/R002096/1, and ST/W002523/1. C.C. is funded by the UKSA under grant number ST/V00638X/1. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

PY - 2023/5/2

Y1 - 2023/5/2

N2 - We present the first observations of seismic waves propagating through the core of Mars. These observations, made using seismic data collected by the InSight geophysical mission, have allowed us to construct the first seismically constrained models for the elastic properties of Mars’ core. We observe core-transiting seismic phase SKS from two farside seismic events detected on Mars and measure the travel times of SKS relative to mantle traversing body waves. SKS travels through the core as a compressional wave, providing information about bulk modulus and density. We perform probabilistic inversions using the core-sensitive relative travel times together with gross geophysical data and travel times from other, more proximal, seismic events to seek the equation of state parameters that best describe the liquid iron-alloy core. Our inversions provide constraints on the velocities in Mars’ core and are used to develop the first seismically based estimates of its composition. We show that models informed by our SKS data favor a somewhat smaller (median core radius = 1,780 to 1,810 km) and denser (core density = 6.2 to 6.3 g/cm3) core compared to previous estimates, with a P-wave velocity of 4.9 to 5.0 km/s at the core–mantle boundary, with the composition and structure of the mantle as a dominant source of uncertainty. We infer from our models that Mars’ core contains a median of 20 to 22 wt% light alloying elements when we consider sulfur, oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen. These data can be used to inform models of planetary accretion, composition, and evolution.

AB - We present the first observations of seismic waves propagating through the core of Mars. These observations, made using seismic data collected by the InSight geophysical mission, have allowed us to construct the first seismically constrained models for the elastic properties of Mars’ core. We observe core-transiting seismic phase SKS from two farside seismic events detected on Mars and measure the travel times of SKS relative to mantle traversing body waves. SKS travels through the core as a compressional wave, providing information about bulk modulus and density. We perform probabilistic inversions using the core-sensitive relative travel times together with gross geophysical data and travel times from other, more proximal, seismic events to seek the equation of state parameters that best describe the liquid iron-alloy core. Our inversions provide constraints on the velocities in Mars’ core and are used to develop the first seismically based estimates of its composition. We show that models informed by our SKS data favor a somewhat smaller (median core radius = 1,780 to 1,810 km) and denser (core density = 6.2 to 6.3 g/cm3) core compared to previous estimates, with a P-wave velocity of 4.9 to 5.0 km/s at the core–mantle boundary, with the composition and structure of the mantle as a dominant source of uncertainty. We infer from our models that Mars’ core contains a median of 20 to 22 wt% light alloying elements when we consider sulfur, oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen. These data can be used to inform models of planetary accretion, composition, and evolution.

U2 - 10.1073/pnas.2217090120

DO - 10.1073/pnas.2217090120

M3 - Article (Academic Journal)

C2 - 37094138

SN - 0027-8424

VL - 120

JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

IS - 118

M1 - e2217090120

ER -

First observations of core-transiting seismic phases on Mars

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Exploring Mars' Core with InSight Seismic Data Yrs2+3

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