A big triumph for NASA today as the space agency made its first Mars landing in six years. It’s a two-year mission for Nasa’s InSight spacecraft to study Mars’ deep interior.
Humanity may be years away from setting foot on Mars, but the Red Planet is turning into something of a monument park for our species all the same. Rovers and landers—some still operating, some having completed their functional life—dot the surface, and orbiters cross the skies overhead. On November 26 at 2:47 PM EST, one more machine joined the growing fleet, and it will be less concerned with what happens on or above Mars and more with what goes on within it.
Our @NASAInSight spacecraft stuck the #MarsLanding!
Its new home is Elysium Planitia, a still, flat region where it’s set to study seismic waves and heat deep below the surface of the Red Planet for a planned two-year mission. Learn more: https://t.co/fIPATUugFo pic.twitter.com/j0hXTjhV6I
— NASA (@NASA) November 26, 2018
Watch the full reaction from NASA above and here’s a picture instantly sent after the landing.
? Wish you were here! @NASAInSight sent home its first photo after #MarsLanding:
InSight’s view is a flat, smooth expanse called Elysium Planitia, but its workspace is below the surface, where it will study Mars’ deep interior. pic.twitter.com/3EU70jXQJw
— NASA (@NASA) November 26, 2018
In the months ahead, InSight will begin its study of the Martian underworld, with the aim of helping scientists understand how the planet formed, lessons that could help also shed light on Earth’s origins. It will listen for tremors — marsquakes — and collect data that will be pieced together in a map of the interior of the red planet.