Mars InSight lander sends bittersweet goodbye selfie after 4 years of revealing red planet’s mysteries
Mars InSight lander sends bittersweet goodbye selfie after 4 years of revealing red planet’s mysteries
Update: Shortly after this article was published, NASA confirmed that it was Unable to contact the Mars InSight lander (opens in a new tab) in two consecutive attempts, ending the four-year mission on the planet’s surface.
Twilight approaches the lander of NASA’s Mars InSight, a robotic seismology laboratory that has been studying the red planet’s inner workings since November 2018.
On Tuesday (December 20), NASA announced a statement (opens in a new tab) that InSight did not respond to routine communications from Earth. This is an alarming, though not surprising, sign that InSight may finally be dead after months of dwindling power supplies.
“My power is very low, so this may be the last picture I can send,” the officer said InSight Twitter account (opens in a new tab) he tweeted on Dec. 19 along with a dust-covered selfie. “But don’t worry about me – my time here has been productive and peaceful. If I can keep talking to my mission team, I will, but I’ll be closing here soon. Thanks for staying with me.”
The solar panels that InSight relies on for power have been continuously covered in dust and dirt for the past four years, gradually reducing its available energy. Things got so bad this summer that NASA shut down all of InSight’s science instruments except the seismometer so the sickly rover could focus on its primary mission goal: listening for Marsquakes to study the Martian interior for as long as possible.
NASA will officially declare the InSight mission terminated if the lander does not respond to a second consecutive communication session. After that, the 25- to 30-person operations team will wrap up the mission by ensuring that InSight’s four years of data are properly stored and easily accessible to researchers around the world.
InSight landed on Mars’ Elysium Planitia, a flat, volcanically active plain that straddles the Martian equator, on November 26, 2018. Using a robotic arm, the lander deployed a small seismometer (a device used to measure seismic waves generated by earthquakes). and impacts) on the plain, then covered it with a dome-shaped shield of heat and wind. Since then, InSight has detected more than 1,300 Marsquakes, the largest of which was a large 4.7 magnitude quake on May 4, 2022.
Studying this seismic data has already helped scientists map the mysterious interior of Marsdetects the the most massive meteorite impact ever recorded in the solar system and show that volcanic activity on the red planet could it leads to a hidden source of liquid water.
With four years of data to examine, scientists around the world will likely use InSight’s insights to unravel the mysteries of Mars for many years to come. Goodbye, sweet robot.
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