From seismic waves to gravity waves, InSight seems to be on a mission to study every possible kind of wave, including magnetic fields… which deals with electromagnetic waves.

In new results from PSI’s own Catherine Johnson, Mars’ magnetic field at InSight’s location was found to be significantly stronger than anticipated, but it is still so weak that a day-to-night change they are measuring may be due to detecting magnetic fields from space. Let’s unpack that.

Mars has no intrinsic magnetic field that is driven by an internal dynamo. Instead, it has rocks that are natural magnets which maintain a fossil record of how the magnetic field was aligned in the past. Different places have different amounts of the ancient magnetic rocks, and InSight’s location is a particularly magnetic place. Even though this location has 10x more magnetic field than was expected, it is still only a shadow of what we see on Earth, and against this background local magnetic field, InSight was able to measure a nightly spike of magnetism around midnight each night. This timing leads scientists to believe the magnetic spike is coming from space, and in the future it’s hoped that InSight and the orbiting Maven mission will be able to make coincident observations to try and understand the source of this midnight magnetism.

Learn More

• A Year of Surprising Science From NASA’s InSight Mars Mission (NASA)
• Lander Offers New InSights on Martian Magnetic Field (PSI)