The data analyzed for the new report came from NASA’s InSight mission, which captured anomalies in the Red Planet’s seismic vibrations that captured the researchers’ attention. What they discovered was surprising: 4-kilometer-wide chunks of rock in the Martian interior preserving the planet’s geological history. A Violent BeginningRoughly 4.5 billion years ago, the dust and rock orbiting our sun coalesced into rocky planets, including Mars. The peak at what lies beneath the Red Planet is a rare insight into one of our cosmic neighbors. The paper, “Seismic Evidence for a Highly Heterogeneous Martian Mantle,” appeared in Science on August 28, 2025.