The first photo InSight sent of its successful landing; the lens is covered with bits of dust (Photo from NASA)
NASA recently made a major breakthrough in Mars exploration. On Monday (Nov. 26), the NASA InSight mission landed on Mars. Originally launched in May, the InSight spent seven months traveling before sending the official signal to NASA letting them it was still functioning. It even included a picture of the red planet’s surface to show where it landed.
InSight or Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigation, Geodesy, and Head Transport, aims to explore Mars’ deep interior, an area we know the least about. Now that it’s made contact, it’ll spend two years studying the interior to learn more about the planet’s history. The 790-pound probe will measure the planet’s vital signs, its pulse (seismology), temperature, and reflexes (prevision tracking).
The explorer isn’t equipped with wheels, but it does have a 7.8 foot-long robotic arm that will be used to place a seismometer on the ground to detect “marsquakes.” It’ll also dig 10 to 16 feet into the crust of Mars, which is 15 times deeper than any previous Martian mission, according to NASA.
InSight’s journey to Mars was a long one. It traveled 301,223,981 miles through space followed by two cube satellites, called MarCO. They are the first cube satellites to fly into deep space, and they shared data about InSight when it entered into Mars’ atmosphere when landing. As for the landing, InSight guided itself, which proved to be difficult. It took seven minutes in total for the explorer to make contact.
Not only did the explorer successfully land, but it also came with an unexpected carry-on. A chip with the etching “Green Day Since 1986” was found on board InSight. This led the punk rockers to declare on Twitter that they’ve “officially landed on Mars.” There must be quite a few Green Day fans on the NASA team.
This is a huge win for NASA that will allow us to learn more about Mars after having studied its surface for years. As NASA administrator Jim Breidenstine said “This accomplishment represents the ingenuity of America and our international partners, and it serves as a testament to the dedication and perseverance of our team. The best of NASA is yet to come, and it is coming soon."
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