NASA is preparing to say farewell to the spacecraft responsible for providing some of our closest looks at the surface of Mars.
More than 10 years after it was first announced, the InSight lander will fall silent in the next few weeks.
The US space agency says that because of the sheer amount of windblown dust now settled on it solar panels, its power generation capability is now on its last legs.
It has been stationed on Mars since 2018, when the little craft endured “seven minutes of terror” to descend to the surface of the mysterious (though, thanks to InSight, now slightly less so) red planet.
Sky News takes a look back at a few of its best moments – and how its four-year mission will wind down.
The first selfie on Mars
A few years ago, Google used data on people’s photo-taking habits to estimate that almost 100 million selfies were snapped every single day.
But only one’s been captured on Mars.
After its successful 300 million-mile journey, the InSight rover used a camera attached to its robotic arm to beam a photo all the way back to Earth from an area known as Elysium Planitia.
It marked NASA’s eighth successful Mars landing, withstanding temperatures of up to 1,500C, and prompted wild celebrations among the ground team.
Sounds like a ‘Marsquake’
InSight’s quake monitor recorded a faint rumbling sound some five months after touching down on Mars.
NASA’s scientists concluded that it came from within the planet, dubbing it a “Marsquake”.
It was so faint that it would have barely been registered had it happened on Earth, and was caused by the planet’s process of cooling and contraction (Mars doesn’t have any tectonic plates).
The recording kicked off a new research field of “Martian seismology”, NASA said, which could help find out more about how rocky planets – including the Earth – were formed.
Red planet windy season
Further tremors were detected in April 2021, but…
Source : skynews
