Fall through a butterscotch sky onto red rust, then keep going: past hidden water, a blanket of molten rock and a core that once protected a wetter world.
For this trip you are indestructible. Nothing can hurt you. As you fall, we will tell you what a real body would be going through.
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125 km above the ground
Spacecraft landing on Mars hit the top of its air about here, at around 20,000 km/h.
They have about seven minutes to slow to a stop, entirely on their own. A radio signal takes too long to reach Earth for anyone to help.
A real body: Almost no air. The Sun looks about two-thirds as wide as it does from Earth.
10 km above the ground
Fine red dust hangs in the air, turning the daytime sky a pale butterscotch. At sunset it flips: Martian sunsets are blue.
Every few years, dust storms grow until they wrap the whole planet. One in 2018 blotted out the Sun for months and ended the Opportunity rover's almost 15-year mission.
A real body: A four-hundredth of Earth's air, and −70 °C. You'd need a pressure suit just to stay conscious.
0 km down
You land on rocks and dust the colour of rust, because that's what it is: iron in the soil, rusted over billions of years.
Scrape the soil near the poles and you hit water ice a few centimetres down. NASA's Phoenix lander did exactly that in 2008.
A real body: Less than 1% of Earth's air. Without a suit, the water in your mouth and eyes would boil away, even though the air is −63 °C.
15 km down
In 2024, scientists studying marsquakes recorded by NASA's InSight lander found signs of liquid water filling cracks in the rock 11 to 20 km down.
If they're right, there's enough to cover all of Mars in an ocean over a kilometre deep. It could be the best place left on Mars to look for life.
A real body: About 1,600 times Earth's air pressure, and as hot as boiling water.
300 km down
Earth's surface is broken into moving plates. Mars's is one solid shell that never moves.
So volcanoes could sit over the same hot spot for ages, piling up lava until they became giants. Olympus Mons grew to two and a half times the height of Everest.
The shell still shakes: InSight felt more than 1,300 marsquakes.
A real body: Tens of thousands of times Earth's air pressure and well over 1,000 °C. The rock glows, but it's solid.
1,570 km down
At the bottom of the mantle is a layer of molten rock about 150 km thick, wrapped around the core like a blanket.
It fooled scientists at first. Until it was found in 2023, it made Mars's core look bigger than it really is.
A real body: Nearly 200,000 times Earth's air pressure. The rock around you has melted.
1,720 km down
Below the molten rock is liquid iron, mixed with nickel, sulfur and oxygen.
About four billion years ago it churned enough to give Mars a magnetic field. When it went quiet, the solar wind began stripping the air away, and Mars slowly lost the thick sky and the rivers it once had.
A real body: 200,000 times Earth's air pressure and close to 2,000 °C, in an ocean of liquid metal.
3,390 km down
In 2025, scientists found one more layer: a solid iron ball about 1,200 km across, at the very centre.
They spotted it in echoes from marsquakes that InSight had recorded years earlier, bouncing off something hard at the middle of the planet.
A real body: Around 400,000 times Earth's air pressure and probably over 2,000 °C, at the centre of the red planet.
Through the red dust and down to the iron heart of Mars. You made it.
Without a suit you'd be in trouble within seconds. The air is less than 1% as thick as Earth's, so the water in your mouth and eyes would start to boil, even at −63 °C.
With a suit, you'd see rust-coloured rocks, a pale butterscotch sky and, at sunset, a blue Sun. Scrape the soil near the poles and you'd hit ice.
Below, marsquakes hint at liquid water 11 to 20 km down, then hot rock, a blanket of molten rock and a liquid iron core with a solid heart.
No. The air is too thin to breathe and too thin to keep the liquids in your body from boiling. You'd lose consciousness in well under a minute.
Yes, as ice near the surface, which NASA's Phoenix lander dug up in 2008. In 2024, scientists found signs of liquid water deep in cracks in the rock, 11 to 20 km down.
A crust, a mantle that is one solid shell, a 150 km blanket of molten rock, a liquid iron core and, found in 2025, a solid iron ball about 1,200 km across at the very centre.
About four billion years ago its core stopped making a magnetic field. Without that shield, the solar wind stripped the air away, and Mars lost its rivers.
