{"id":203999,"date":"2025-01-18T02:29:29","date_gmt":"2025-01-18T08:29:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/01\/marss-two-distinct-hemispheres-caused-by-mantle-convection-not-giant-impacts-study-claims"},"modified":"2025-01-18T02:29:29","modified_gmt":"2025-01-18T08:29:29","slug":"marss-two-distinct-hemispheres-caused-by-mantle-convection-not-giant-impacts-study-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/01\/marss-two-distinct-hemispheres-caused-by-mantle-convection-not-giant-impacts-study-claims","title":{"rendered":"Mars\u2019s two distinct hemispheres caused by mantle convection not giant impacts, study claims"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/marss-two-distinct-hemispheres-caused-by-mantle-convection-not-giant-impacts-study-claims3.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Mars has northern and southern hemispheres like Earth, but their defining characteristics are markedly different, a phenomenon known as Martian dichotomy. The Southern Highlands are older, higher in elevation and more cratered than the Northern Lowlands. The elevated terrain of the former acts as a natural barrier to airflow, resulting in varied wind patterns and contributing to localized weather phenomena.<\/p>\n<p>Explanations for the origin of this dichotomy primarily surround giant impactors (~2,000 kilometers in diameter) from space and large-scale convective movements of the mantle caused by differences in its temperature and density.<\/p>\n<p>Research <a href=\"https:\/\/agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1029\/2024GL110921\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in <i>Geophysical Research Letters<\/i> has attempted to further unravel this origin story through study of Martian earthquakes, or marsquakes. Much like on Earth, this <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/seismic+activity\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">seismic activity<\/a> can be used to explore driving mechanisms beneath Mars\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mars has northern and southern hemispheres like Earth, but their defining characteristics are markedly different, a phenomenon known as Martian dichotomy. The Southern Highlands are older, higher in elevation and more cratered than the Northern Lowlands. The elevated terrain of the former acts as a natural barrier to airflow, resulting in varied wind patterns and [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-203999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203999\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}