#INterior exploration using Seismic Investigations Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight)

[g4laxy-drag0n]

Scientists torturing backronyms/acronyms happens a lot, actually (see my tags for examples)

Backronyms

Physicists suck at naming things (I can say this because I'm a MechE and I have had to deal with so many physicists), but occasionally they have a stroke of brilliance. Like, a friend of mine worked on a dark matter detector called DarkSide. That's so goofy that it wraps back around to good.

Anyway, there's this superconducting fusion reactor in france called WEST. It's notable for having first-wall shielding tiles (the innermost surface of the vacuum chamber, directly facing the fusion plasma) entirely made of tungsten.

There are a lot of materials used for plasma-facing components – tungsten, molybdenum, graphite, beryllium, various composites and combinations of the above – but it's pretty rare for a reactor to go full tungsten. It can take extremely high temperatures, but it's brittle and expensive, and "high-Z" (high molecular weight) impurities in the plasma cause their own issues. So, the main purpose of WEST is to investigate the viability of an all-tungsten first wall and divertor.

To that end, they tortured an acronym until they got it to work:

Tungsten Environment in Steady-state Tokamak

Or "WEST"

Get it?

GEW IW??

[vitalspace]

Current Mars Missions

Mars Science Laboratory - Curiosity Rover

Launch Date: November 26, 2011

Landing Date: August 6, 2012

Mission Overview: The Curiosity Rover was designed to explore Gale Crater on Mars as part of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission. It aims to investigate Mars' climate and geology and assess whether Gale Crater ever offered environmental conditions favorable for microbial life.

Key Findings: Curiosity has discovered evidence of ancient water flows, complex organic molecules, and a methane cycle, which may indicate past habitability.

InSight Lander

Launch Date: May 5, 2018

Landing Date: November 26, 2018

Mission Overview: InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport) is a NASA mission designed to study the deep interior of Mars. Its primary goal is to understand the formation and evolution of terrestrial planets by measuring the planet's seismic activity and heat flow.

Key Findings: InSight has detected marsquakes, which provide insights into Mars' interior structure. It has also measured the heat flow from the planet’s interior and collected data on its weather.

Mars 2020 - Perseverance Rover

Launch Date: July 30, 2020

Landing Date: February 18, 2021

Mission Overview: The Perseverance Rover aims to search for signs of ancient life and collect rock and soil samples for potential return to Earth. It carries advanced scientific instruments and the Ingenuity helicopter, which has performed the first powered flight on another planet.

Key Findings: Perseverance has collected samples that will be stored for future missions to return to Earth. It has also demonstrated the first oxygen production from the Martian atmosphere.

Future Mars MissionsExoMars 2022 (Rosalind Franklin Rover)

Launch Date: Currently planned for 2028 (delayed from 2022)

Mission Overview: ExoMars is a joint mission by the European Space Agency (ESA) and Roscosmos. The Rosalind Franklin Rover will search for signs of past life beneath the Martian surface and drill up to two meters to collect samples.

Key Objectives: The rover will analyze the subsurface environment, focusing on the chemical, physical, and biological properties of Martian soil and rock.Mars Sample Return

Mission Launch Date: Targeted for the late 2020s to early 2030s

Mission Overview: This mission is a collaborative effort between NASA and ESA to bring back samples collected by the Perseverance Rover. The mission involves a series of steps, including launching a fetch rover to collect the samples, launching a Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) to send them into Mars orbit, and capturing them with an Earth Return Orbiter.

Key Objectives: The goal is to bring back Martian samples to Earth for detailed analysis in laboratories, which will provide unprecedented insights into the planet's geology and potential biosignatures.China's Tianwen-3 Mission

Launch Date: Planned for the 2030s

Mission Overview: Building on the success of the Tianwen-1 mission, Tianwen-3 aims to conduct a sample return mission from Mars. It will involve a lander, rover, and ascent vehicle to collect and return samples.

Key Objectives: Similar to the NASA/ESA Mars Sample Return, Tianwen-3 seeks to bring back Martian soil and rock samples to Earth for extensive scientific study.

Significance of Mars Missions

The exploration of Mars is crucial for several reasons:Scientific Understanding: By studying Mars' geology, climate, and potential biosignatures, we gain insights into the planet's history and the possibility of life beyond Earth.

Future Human Exploration: These missions lay the groundwork for future human missions to Mars by testing new technologies, understanding the Martian environment, and identifying potential resources.International Collaboration: Mars missions often involve international partnerships, advancing global scientific cooperation and pooling resources for more ambitious endeavors.

Mars missions are a testament to human ingenuity and curiosity, pushing the boundaries of what we can achieve in space exploration. Each mission builds on the knowledge gained from previous ones, bringing us closer to understanding the Red Planet and our place in the universe.

[spacenutspod]

Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTGs) have a long history of service in space exploration. Since the first was tested in space in 1961, RTGs have gone on to be used by 31 NASA missions, including the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Packages (ALSEPs) delivered by the Apollo astronauts to the lunar surface. RTGs have also powered the Viking 1 and 2 missions to Mars, the Ulysses mission to the Sun, Galileo mission to Jupiter, and the Pioneer, Voyager, and New Horizons missions to the outer Solar System – which are currently in (or well on their way to) interstellar space. In recent years, RTGs have allowed the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers to continue the search for evidence of past (and maybe present) life on Mars. In the coming years, these nuclear batteries will power more astrobiology missions, like the Dragonfly mission that will explore Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. In recent years, there has been concern that NASA was running low on Plutonium-238, the key component for RTGs. Luckily, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently delivered a large shipment of plutonium oxide, putting it on track to realize its goal of regular production of the radioisotopic material. The recent shipment of 0.5 kg (over 1 lb) of plutonium oxide from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Oak Ridge National Laboratory to its Los Alamos National Laboratory is critical to realize NASA’s planned future missions. It is also the largest shipment since the DOE issued its report to Congress in 2010 – “Startup Plan for Plutonium-238 Production for Radioisotope Power Systems.” As per this plan, this delivery is a significant step toward achieving the goal of a sustained annual production rate of 1.5 kg (3.3 lbs) by 2026. Like all radioisotope power systems (RPS), RTGs rely on the natural decay of the radioisotope plutonium-238 to provide heat for a Light Weight Radioisotope Heater Unit (LWRHU) or heat and electricity for a Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG). These systems are vital to space exploration since they enable exploration to some of the deepest, darkest, and most distant destinations in the Solar System (and beyond). In short, they enable missions to locations where solar power is limited, intermittent, or unavailable. Consider NASA’s Opportunity rover, which explored the surface of Mars for almost 15 years, establishing multiple records in the process, but was lost in 2018 when a planet-wide storm caused a huge dust buildup on its solar panels. A similar fate claimed NASA’s Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport (InSight) lander, which recently concluded its mission to explore Mars’ interior structure and seismic environment after four years. Once again, the culprit was dust buildup on the mission’s solar panels, which caused its battery to die. The first spacecraft to benefit from this restart was the Perseverance rover, which carries some of the new plutonium produced by DOE. An MMRTG continuously provides the rover with heat and about 110 watts of electricity, keeping its instruments powered during the day and its batteries warm at night. As Carl Sandifer, the RPS program manager at NASA’s Glenn Research Center, said in a recent NASA press statement, “NASA’s Radioisotope Power Systems Program works in partnership with the Department of Energy to enable missions to operate in some of the most extreme environments in our solar system and interstellar space.” NASA and other space agencies are also investigating nuclear systems to provide power for future exploration missions. This includes compact nuclear generators for powering habitats on the Moon and Mars, known as Kilopower Reactor Using Sterling TechnologY (KRUSTY) reactors. There are also plans to resurrect the Space Race-era Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Applications (NERVA) technology to create spacecraft equipped with nuclear-thermal and nuclear-electric propulsion, which could enable missions to Mars in less than 100 days. For over sixty years, NASA has relied on radioisotope-based electrical power systems and heater units to advance space exploration and the frontiers of science. With the restart of this program, NASA and DOE have signaled their intent to maintain their long-standing partnership to ensure that the U.S. space program can enable missions requiring radioisotopes for decades to come. As we explore farther from Earth, establish outposts beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO), and contemplate missions to nearby stars, nuclear power will play a vital role. Further Reading: NASA The post NASA is Getting the Plutonium it Needs for Future Missions appeared first on Universe Today.

[gaetaniu]

Il più grande terremoto marziano di InSight è stato probabilmente causato da processi geologici

Una illustrazione del lander InSight su Marte. Durante la sua permanenza su Marte, il lander InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) della NASA ha registrato oltre 1.300 eventi sismici, noti come marsquakes. Di questi, alcuni sono stati identificati come provenienti da eventi di craterizzazione da impatto di meteoriti sulla superficie del pianeta.…

[marsmissiontournament]

Meet the Contestants: InSight

A selfie of InSight [NASA/JPL-Caltech]

The InSight lander (which is technically an acronym for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) launched in May 2018 and landed in November 2018, just missing the global dust storm of Mars year 34 (2018). Its primary mission was to study Mars’ interior, tectonic activity and formation and evolution. Among its scientific instruments was a “mole”, a small drill that was intended to drill 5 m into the Martian surface to take measurements. Unfortunately, it only managed to penetrate 35 cm.

InSight detected over one thousand Marsquakes over its life, as well as recording the sound of martian wind, and detecting vibrations caused by a meteorite impacting the surface of Mars. As dust continually accumulated on InSights solar panels, it was able to draw less and less power over the course of its mission and eventually in December of 2022 it sent its last communication.

Read more on the InSight site.

Tune in for round 2 of the Mars Mission Tournament when InSight goes up against the Tianwen 1 orbiter.

[sciencespies]

NASA InSight Mars Mission Is Dead After 4 Years Listening for Marsquakes

https://sciencespies.com/news/nasa-insight-mars-mission-is-dead-after-4-years-listening-for-marsquakes/

NASA InSight Mars Mission Is Dead After 4 Years Listening for Marsquakes

After four years of making important discoveries about the interior of the red planet, the stationary lander lost power because of Martian dust covering its solar panels.

NASA’s Mars InSight spacecraft is dead.

For months, mission managers have been expecting this as dust accumulated on the lander’s solar panels, blocking the sunlight the stationary spacecraft needs to generate power.

InSight, which arrived on the surface of Mars more than four years ago to measure the red planet’s seismological shaking, was last in touch on Dec. 15. But nothing was heard during the last two communication attempts, and NASA announced on Wednesday that it was unlikely for it ever to hear from InSight again.

“I feel sad, but I also feel pretty good,” said Bruce Banerdt, the mission’s principal investigator at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in an interview. “We’ve been expecting this to come to an end for some time.”

He added, “I think that it’s been a great run.”

InSight — the name is a compression of the mission’s full name, Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport — was a diversion from NASA’s better known rover missions, focusing on the mysteries of Mars’s deep interior instead of searching for signs of water and possible extinct life on the red planet. The $830 million mission aimed to answer questions about the planet’s structure, composition and geological history.

Mars lacks plate tectonics, the sliding of pieces of crust that shape the surface of our planet. But marsquakes occur nonetheless, driven by other stresses like the shrinking and cracking of the crust as it cools.

The mission’s final year proved particularly eventful, as its instruments detected vibrations from a sizable space rock, 15 to 40 feet in diameter, hitting Mars 2,000 miles away from the spacecraft on Christmas Eve last year. NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was then able to photograph the new crater and chunks of underground ice that were kicked up to the surface by the impact. That ice discovery was closer to the equator than any spotted previously, a potential resource for future astronauts.

In May, InSight measured a marsquake registering 4.7-magnitude, the largest of the mission.

Sunset on Mars on April 25, 2019.NASA/JPL-Caltech

The spacecraft’s seismometer lived up to scientists’ expectations. It was the first time that quakes have been detected on another planet. (It was, however, not the first detection of off-Earth quakes. During the Apollo missions, NASA astronauts left seismometers on the moon, and those registered numerous moonquakes.)

The seismic waves bouncing around the interior of Mars essentially provided a sonogram of the planet, offering new details about the crust, mantle and core.

This was the biggest result of the mission, Dr. Banerdt said, “to actually map out the deep interior of the planet.”

The crust below InSight turned out thinner than expected, about 15 to 25 miles. The red planet’s core is still molten, somewhat a surprise to scientists because Mars is much smaller than Earth. The core is also larger than expected — 1,120 miles in diameter — and less dense than predicted, which points to lighter elements mixed in with the iron. Those elements would lower the melting point, which could help explain why the core is not solid.

The geological structure helps scientists understand how quickly heat is seeping out of Mars, and that in turn helps them reconstruct what the surface may have been like several billion years ago, and how habitable the surface may have been back then.

“We broke new ground, and our science team can be proud of all that we’ve learned along the way,” Philippe Lognonné of Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, principal investigator of InSight’s seismometer, said in a statement from NASA.

However, a second instrument, which was designed to burrow 16 feet underground, was never able to go far beneath the surface, foiled by unexpectedly clumpy soil. The device, nicknamed “the mole,” was to measure heat flow coming from the deep interior of Mars.

“That was a big disappointment,” Dr. Banerdt said.

A selfie taken by InSight on April 24, 2022, showing the lander covered in Martian dust collected over four years.NASA/JPL-Caltech

Other instruments on InSight measured Martian weather and remnants of an ancient magnetic field that are preserved in the rocks.

Dr. Banerdt said it was still possible that InSight could pop back to life, especially if one of the small dust devil cyclones that skitter across the Martian landscape passes over the spacecraft and cleans off the dust.

If the solar panels can charge up the batteries, InSight would try to restart and try to get back in touch. Radio transmissions from a revived InSight could show up as interference in communications sent from other NASA spacecraft at Mars.

“If we start seeing that signal consistently, that would tell us that perhaps InSight is back in business,” Dr. Banerdt said.

As InSight comes to an end, one of the other active NASA spacecraft on the surface of Mars, the Perseverance rover, is setting the stage for a future mission. It has started dropping onto the ground 10 tubes containing rock samples that are about the size of a stick of chalk.

Perseverance has been drilling a variety of rocks in the Jezero Crater where it landed. A follow-up mission still in the planning stages, Mars Sample Return, is to bring the rocks back to Earth for scientists to study in their laboratories.

The rover is still carrying other tubes — for the rocks drilled so far, two samples have been drilled — and the plan is for the rover to bring the sample tubes to the Mars Sample Return lander.

The samples that are being dropped on the ground now are in essence a backup in case something goes wrong with Perseverance before the Mars Sample Return lander gets there. In that case, the plan would be for the lander to set down near the samples that Perseverance had already dropped and then helicopters, similar to the Ingenuity Marscopter that is currently accompanying the rover, would retrieve the samples.

#News

[newswireml]

NASA’s InSight Mars lander officially retired after four years on the Red Planet#NASAs #InSight #Mars #lander #officially #retired #years #Red #Planet

NASA’s InSight Mars lander officially retired after four years on the Red Planet#NASAs #InSight #Mars #lander #officially #retired #years #Red #Planet

NASA officially ended its InSight Mars lander mission on Wednesday after the spacecraft missed two consecutive communication attempts.  Power on the lander had been dwindling in recent months as a pair of 7-foot wide solar panels collected dust and an unusually thick atmosphere blocked out the sun.  InSight, short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport,…

[eugenelacroix]

Reposted from @nasa After four years on the Red Planet, InSight is signing off. 🤖 Our InSight mission, which has been collecting unique scientific data on Mars, has come to an end. After two consecutive attempts, the mission team at @nasajpl was unable to contact the lander, a sign that the spacecraft’s solar-powered batteries have run out. InSight (short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) set out to study the deep interior of Mars in 2018 and achieved its primary science goals in its first Mars year (nearly two Earth years). Since arriving on the Red Planet, InSight has left a legacy worthy of its name, gathering a rich bounty of scientific data. The mission made scientific discoveries on a seismic scale, its instruments revealing details about Mars’ crust, mantle, and core, helping scientists better understand how all rocky worlds form, including Earth and its Moon. Over its four-year stint at Elysium Planitia, a flat smooth plain that served as its landing site and home, InSight collected new data on the weather on this region of Mars. The mission also took the first seismographic readings beyond Earth since the Apollo missions, measuring a total of 1,319 marsquakes—including ones caused by meteroid impacts. Ever insightful, the lander continued taking readings using its seismometer, the last of its science instruments that remained active even as dust on the lander’s solar panels gradually reduced its energy levels. As InSight takes its final bow on Mars, we thank the mission teams around the world for all the incredible discoveries and data it has provided—data that scientists will use for years to come. Au revoir, little lander! Image description: Wide-angle photo from the InSight lander on Mars shows the area in front of the lander in the late afternoon sun. Science instruments tethered to the lander rest on the sandy surface nearby. Distortion from the wide-angle lens bends the distant horizon into a curved shape, while low-angle sunlight causes a small bluish lens flare on the right side. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech #NASA #Mars #Space #SolarSystem #RedPlanet #Lander#eugenelacroix1 @eugenelacroix1 https://www.instagram.com/p/CmeD0jFoQF_/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[sachaikiawaz01]

NASA Robot Sends One Of The Saddest Tweets I Have Ever Seen

NASA Robot Sends One Of The Saddest Tweets I Have Ever Seen

Image: NASA InSight—or, less elegantly, the Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport mission—is a robot that NASA’s JPL (with help from the European Space Agency) sent to Mars back in 2018. It’s job was fairly simple. Or as simple as “a highly complex robot built on Earth then fired from a rocket into deep space then landed on another planet” can be, anyway.…

[rsinformationsharingblog]

NASA Robot Sends One Of The Saddest Tweets I Have Ever Seen

NASA Robot Sends One Of The Saddest Tweets I Have Ever Seen

Image: NASA InSight—or, less elegantly, the Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport mission—is a robot that NASA’s JPL (with help from the European Space Agency) sent to Mars back in 2018. It’s job was fairly simple. Or as simple as “a highly complex robot built on Earth then fired from a rocket into deep space then landed on another planet” can be, anyway.…

[digitalshiksha01]

NASA Robot Sends One Of The Saddest Tweets I Have Ever Seen

NASA Robot Sends One Of The Saddest Tweets I Have Ever Seen

Image: NASA InSight—or, less elegantly, the Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport mission—is a robot that NASA’s JPL (with help from the European Space Agency) sent to Mars back in 2018. It’s job was fairly simple. Or as simple as “a highly complex robot built on Earth then fired from a rocket into deep space then landed on another planet” can be, anyway.…

[moneygigs]

NASA Robot Sends One Of The Saddest Tweets I Have Ever Seen

NASA Robot Sends One Of The Saddest Tweets I Have Ever Seen

Image: NASA InSight—or, less elegantly, the Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport mission—is a robot that NASA’s JPL (with help from the European Space Agency) sent to Mars back in 2018. It’s job was fairly simple. Or as simple as “a highly complex robot built on Earth then fired from a rocket into deep space then landed on another planet” can be, anyway.…

[bestbodyhealthtips]

NASA Robot Sends One Of The Saddest Tweets I Have Ever Seen

NASA Robot Sends One Of The Saddest Tweets I Have Ever Seen

Image: NASA InSight—or, less elegantly, the Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport mission—is a robot that NASA’s JPL (with help from the European Space Agency) sent to Mars back in 2018. It’s job was fairly simple. Or as simple as “a highly complex robot built on Earth then fired from a rocket into deep space then landed on another planet” can be, anyway.…

[spacenutspod]

An international team of scientists has found the cause of the largest Martian seismic event, or Marsquake, observed by NASA’s Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) Mars lander. After ruling out a meteor impact, they concluded the event must have been caused by a release of stress within the planet’s crust. The forceful quake occurred on May 4, 2022, at 23:23 UTC, on the 1222nd Martian day, or sol, of InSight’s mission. The quake, also known as S1222a, was five times stronger than any event InSight had observed before. It shook the planet at a magnitude of 4.7 and the vibrations reverberated through Mars’ crust for approximately six hours. The event showed similarities with earlier Martian seismic events, which have since been identified as meteor impacts, so scientists scoured the Martian surface for a possible impact crater. To do this, the team used observations from missions currently in orbit around Mars, engaging in an international collaboration between the European Space Agency (ESA), the Chinese National Space Agency, the Indian Space Research Organisation, and the United Arab Emirates Space Agency (UAESA). “This project represents a huge international effort to help solve the mystery of S1222a, and I am incredibly grateful to all the missions who contributed,” said study lead Benjamin Fernando of the University of Oxford. “I hope this project serves as a template for productive international collaborations in deep space.” The area that was imaged in the search for a possible impact crater. The yellow star shows S1222a’s expected epicenter and the yellow rectangle is the primary search area. A, B, and C show the observations and D shows the probability map for the event’s epicenter. (Credit: Fernando et al.) For the largest meteor impacts detected by InSight, scientists found craters with a diameter of up to 150 meters. If S1222a was also caused by a meteor impact, the team expected to find a crater with a diameter of 300 meters and a blast zone that would be 180 kilometers across. Each contributing team looked for this potential crater using their spacecraft, comparing observations from before and after the Marsquake. See AlsoInSight UpdatesSpace Science CoverageL2 Future SpacecraftClick here to Join L2 “We are willing to collaborate with scientists around the world to share and apply this scientific data to get more knowledge about Mars, and are proud to have provided data from the color imagers on Tianwen-1 to contribute to this effort,” said Jianjun Liu of Chinese Academy of Sciences. But why did the team need observations from this many satellites? “Making the association between a given seismic event and a fresh crater is challenging,” the scientists wrote. They can identify fresh craters by the presence of a blast zone, which fades over time but is easy to spot on lower-resolution images taken shortly after the impact. Depending on the impact terrain, however, blast zones can be obscured or less prevalent, so the team still needed high-resolution images to exclude the possibility of an impact. Another challenge is the low availability of high-resolution images from spacecraft in orbit. The high-resolution cameras on the satellites have narrow fields of view and can only observe small areas at one time. Because of this, the region may not have been imaged before the impact, making it impossible for the teams to compare before and after photos in the search for a fresh crater. NEW: A global team of scientists have confirmed the results of a search for the source of the largest-ever seismic event recorded on Mars. The study suggests the quake was the result of enormous tectonic forces within Mars’ crust.https://t.co/wuXo9T0W9v — University of Oxford (@UniofOxford) October 18, 2023 To overcome these hurdles, the scientists had to look at the combined output of all current missions in orbit around Mars. “This experiment shows how important it is to maintain a diverse set of instruments at Mars, and we are very glad to have played our part in completing the multi-instrumental and international approach of this study,” said Daniela Tirsch, Science Coordinator for the High-Resolution Stereo Camera onboard ESA’s Mars Express Spacecraft. With all observations combined, the team found no evidence of an impact crater that could explain the measured seismic event and concluded that the Marsquake must thus have been a tectonic event in the planet’s own crust. “We still think that Mars doesn’t have any active plate tectonics today, so this event was likely caused by the release of stress within Mars’ crust,” said Fernando “These stresses are the result of billions of years of evolution; including the cooling and shrinking of different parts of the planet at different rates.” This Marsquake’s epicenter was located 2,200 kilometers from InSight, but well outside the Cerberus Fossae region which is known for its tectonic activity. Map showing InSight’s location (red triangle), the location of S1222a’s expected epicenter (blue dot) and probability ellipse (blue), Cerberus Fossae (black lines) and the locations of other seismic events (purple dots). (Credit: Kawamura et al. (2023)) “We still do not fully understand why some parts of the planet seem to have higher stresses than others, but results like these help us to investigate further,” said Fernando. “One day, this information may help us to understand where it would be safe for humans to live on Mars and where you might want to avoid!” The S1222a quake occurred near the end of InSight’s mission. By that time, some of the lander’s sensors were turned off to conserve power as dust had begun accumulating on its solar panels, reducing the lander’s available power to less than 20% of the original capacity. Because of this, Fernando’s team was limited to using seismic data, as no measurements of atmospheric pressure and wind were recorded. InSight was launched on May 5, 2018, by the United Launch Alliance atop its Atlas V 401 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The mission landed in Mars’s Elysium Planitia region on Nov. 26, 2018. When NASA retired the lander in December 2022, it had detected 1,319 Marsquakes. Currently, scientists are continuing to analyze InSight’s data even after the mission ended. “This has been a great opportunity for me to collaborate with the InSight team, as well as with individuals from other major missions dedicated to the study of Mars,” said Dimitra Atri of New York University Abu Dhabi, who contributed data from UAESA’s Hope Spacecraft. “This really is the golden age of Mars exploration!” Fernando et al.’s study was published in Geophysical Research Letters on Oct. 17, 2023. (Lead image: Illustration showing InSight on the Martian surface. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech) The post Through international collaboration, scientists find cause of InSight’s most powerful Marsquake appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com.

[euro-journal-english-news]

Massive Marsquake! Five Times Larger Than Previous Record Holder

Massive Marsquake! Five Times Larger Than Previous Record Holder

An artist’s illustration of the InSight lander on Mars. InSight, short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, was designed to give the Red Planet its first thorough checkup since it formed 4.5 billion years ago. Credit: ​​NASA/JPL-Caltech New research publishes first data on the Red Planet’s magnitude 4.7 quake that occurred earlier this year. Late on…

[gaetaniu]

InSight è ancora vivo !

InSight è ancora vivo !

Immagini ICC e IDC registrate nel pomeriggio locale dell’11 dicembre Il lander geologo mostra ancora segni di vita inviando dati e immagini e facendosi beffe delle previsioni. Sono ormai trascorsi oltre 4 anni dall’atterraggio del “Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport” nella pianura marziana di Elysium e sono passate anche 6 settimane da quando la NASA…