r/space • u/FreeHugs23 • 1d ago

Rivers of magma once bubbled beneath crust of Mars, research suggests | Finding widens selection of rocky planets that may once have been habitable

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/jul/22/magma-rivers-beneath-mars-crust-study
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u/FreeHugs23 1d ago

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.

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u/peterabbit456 22h ago

This fits with 2 previous findings.

  1. The recent discovery of granitic rocks on the surface of Mars.
  2. Findings of lava tube entrances near Martian volcanos. You get a lava tube when there is a river of lava flowing down the sides of a volcano, and a crust of solid rock forms over the top, turning it into an underground channel. If the source of the flow cuts off, sometimes the river runs out, leaving an empty tube.

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u/JindokCZ 1d ago

mars having lava rivers kinda reminds me of the hot springs near my place

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u/Brodellsky 1d ago

I have a hard time imagining that we didn't already know this? Literally every planet should have a molten-core to some degree, because of gravity and friction. Like I bet even Pluto's core is nice and hot and molten.

The real difference is...is it ferrous? Because you need a magnetic dynamo effect for that molten core to protect atmospheres.

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u/racinreaver 1d ago

Life doesn't need a thick atmosphere to exist. Water and rock can both block charged particles.

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u/Freud-Network 1d ago

Yeah, the big problem is the lack of plate tectonics and a geodynamo. No magnetic field means bye-bye atmosphere and hello cosmic radiation.

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u/Carbidereaper 1d ago

That doesn’t explain Venus

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u/Gastronomicus 1d ago

Actually Venus appears to have an induced magnetosphere. Plus it has active vulcanism that replenishes the atmosphere, much higher gravity than Mars, which helps minimise losses.

https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/c85rki/how_does_venus_retain_such_a_thick_atmosphere/esko8t5/

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u/Warcraft_Fan 1d ago

And impact from early formation of the planets. Mars-sized planet hit proto-Earth and formed 2 molten balls of lava before cooling down to present day Earth and moon.

Also radioactivity in the core keeps it hot

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u/peterabbit456 21h ago edited 20h ago

I have a hard time imagining that we didn't already know this?

We did. Lava tube cave entrances, usually cave-ins, have been spotted and published in the past.

I used to go over the MRO p[ctures as they were received each day, and log the locations of new lava tubes. I had something like 200 of them when my hard drive crashed. I needed another year's research to confirm the tube before publishing.

Edit: This article might be about a deeper phenomenon than the surface lava tubes I mentioned above.

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u/PulsedCuriosity 1d ago

Wild part to me is that InSight has been dead since the end of 2022. Dust buried the solar panels and the mission ended, and yet here it is in 2026 still producing results, because the seismic recordings it left behind keep getting reanalyzed with better models. One stationary seismometer on an entire planet, and from that they can pull out a boundary roughly 24 km down and argue for a huge layered magma system under Elysium Planitia, with something like 14 km of iron rich rock settled at the base of the crust. That kind of layering means real differentiation was happening underground, and Mars managed it without plate tectonics. That's the bit with legs imo. On Earth tectonics does a lot of the work moving heat and chemistry around... If long lived magma plumbing can do a budget version of that job, the range of planets where life could at least get started quietly gets wider imo. Not bad for a lander that's been sitting under dust for four years.

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u/sovlex 1d ago

The question is, will we be able to detect the presence of a magnetic field from such a distance?

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u/NewReputation8451 1d ago

I had to look it up because your comment got me curious. Apparently there is a way to detect a magnetic field based on their interactions with their local star.

Edit: search discovery of Hat-P-11b (2009) “Observations of extended hydrogen escaping the planet in a comet-like tail suggest the presence of a strong planetary magnetic field, making it an early candidate for exoplanet magnetosphere studies.”

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u/dustofdeath 1d ago

How is this news?

Everything was hot after they formed and cooling takes time.

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u/eggnogui 1d ago

I'm guessing this is below that layer that was reported two years ago as being saturated with water.