After an arduous 300-mile journey lasting 7 months, NASA’s Mars probe has at last reached its dusty red Martian destination.
The spacecraft hurtled into the planet’s atmosphere at 12,000 mph before slowed itself, finally to a halt, at its surface in a mere matter of minutes. Insight’s landing spot, Elysium Planitia, is one of the most desolate places on the extra-terrestrial world: a vast, smooth lava plain that NASA call “the biggest parking lot on Mars”.
But a barren, and probably quiet, landscape is exactly what Insight needs for its mission to explore the unknown core of Mars. Its objective is to investigate the deep interior of the planet and any seismic activity that may be occurring there - in other words, “Mars-quakes”.
Think of Insight as a doctor’s check up on the planet over 4.5 billion years after its birth, in order to provide revolutionary data about Mars and possibly give us more insight into the childhood of our own planet. I can’t wait to hear what they make of the results.
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