NASA Jet Propulsion Lab leaders have spent the last year on Mars, equivalent to two Earth years, exploring the planet’s interior and geological activity to learn more about the formation and evolut…
, NASA’s InSight Mars lander has paved the way for groundbreaking discoveries that will be studied for decades, according to a team of researchers heading the interplanetary expedition. But the rover is gradually losing power, forcing scientists to prepare for the sunset of their mission sometime this summer.
Thankfully, Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington, explained Tuesday, May 17, the data already collected by scientists allows researchers to accurately measure Mars’ weather patterns, the composition of its planetary structure and remnants of the planet’s ancient magnetic field.
InSight’s solar panels produced roughly 5,000 watt-hours each Martian day, or sol, after the spacecraft touched down in November 2018. But by spring 2022, enough dust had settled on the panels that they were only producing about 500 watt-hours each sol. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA’s InSight lander team enjoyed this Mars-shaped cake on the first anniversary of the spacecraft’s Nov. 26, 2018, landing. The cake came complete with its own inner layers – just like the Red Planet. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
But so is life in space, according to Banerdt, who compared constructing a rover to the likes of buying a car. No matter what happens though, an excited Banerdt added on Tuesday’s call, scientists will be plenty occupied in the coming months dissecting models that depict, for the first time in history, the core, mantle and crust of Mars.
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