Scientists have inferred a mantle region beneath Mars’s southern highlands that is about 200–400 °C warmer than its surroundings. The estimate comes from changes in Mars’s gravity detected through orbiter tracking—not from a thermometer, a drill, or a surface hot spot. The finding, published in Nature on 26 August 2026, reveals an interior contrast but does not establish that Mars is currently erupting.
What the study found beneath Mars
The study identifies a warmer-than-surrounding region in the mantle beneath the southern highlands, with a thermal contrast estimated at 200–400 °C. Broadly opposite it, the researchers infer a comparatively stiffer mantle pattern beneath the northern lowlands. The pattern is broadly aligned with Mars’s crustal dichotomy, the large-scale contrast between the planet’s northern lowlands and southern highlands.
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The temperature contrast is an interpretation of the inferred mantle structure, not a direct temperature reading. The analysis averages heterogeneity over the mantle, and the authors note that the vertical distribution cannot be uniquely resolved. It therefore does not establish a precise depth or the dimensions of a sharply bounded pocket.
How orbiters revealed an interior difference
Seasonal tides leave a gravity signal
Mars’s eccentric orbit and axial tilt produce seasonal solar tidal forces. Those forces deform the planet slightly. The resulting movement of mass changes Mars’s time-variable gravity field, which affects the radio signals used to track orbiting spacecraft.
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Tracking data constrain the mantle
Researchers analyzed about 16 years of tracking data from Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Odyssey, and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. They reconstructed gravity variations from the tracking signals and compared them with models of how Mars would respond under different interior structures. A hotter or less rigid mantle deforms more readily than a colder or more rigid one. As Brown University postdoctoral researcher and study co-author Nick Wagner put it, “A hotter or less rigid interior deforms more easily, while a colder or more rigid interior resists deformation.”
The authors report that degree-3 components of Mars’s time-variable gravity differ by as much as 300% from predictions for a spherically symmetric planet. They also infer that effective mantle shear modulus—the measure of resistance to deformation—varies by more than 20% across the pattern. These figures describe this study’s analysis; they are not general measurements of all Martian gravity or mantle properties.
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What the warm region does—and does not—show
- It is an inferred mantle thermal anomaly. It is not a measured surface hot spot, and no temperature sensor or drill established the temperature.
- It does not prove present-day surface volcanism. The finding alone does not establish active eruptions or a current volcanic episode.
- Its cause remains unsettled. The study discusses regional mantle convection and long-term insulation by the thick southern crust as possible explanations. Wagner’s Brown University interview also raises an early large impact as a hypothesis. A compositional contribution is another possibility for future investigation, not an established result.
Why the origin is still uncertain
Different mechanisms could create or preserve an uneven mantle. Convection could redistribute heat within the mantle, while a thick southern crust could insulate the region and slow heat loss. An early large impact is another proposed explanation. The gravity response constrains differences in how the interior deforms, but it does not by itself identify which mechanism produced those differences. The study does not select a settled winner among these explanations.
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