This may be the last image sent by NASA’s Mars Insight spacecraft.
After a four-year mission to the Red Planet, the robotic probe, known for its serendipity The first “selfie” taken on Mars – it’s off.
Thick windblown dust covered InSight’s solar panels, b NASA I expect to lose contact with the probe soon.
The US space agency posted the news on the spacecraft’s Twitter page, saying: “My power is really low, so this may be the last image I can send.
“Although, don’t worry about me: my time here has been productive and uneventful.
“If I can keep talking to my team about the mission, I will, but I’ll be signing here soon. Thanks for staying with me.
NASA announced the £630 million InSight project 10 years ago as a follow-up to the successful Curiosity rover.
The InSight lander’s goal was to find out how Mars formed, with the aim of giving scientists a better understanding of how rocky bodies like Earth formed.
Before that, the spacecraft had to successfully make the 300 million mile journey to Mars before it could continue Seven minutes of terror to descend to the surface.
Only 40% of flights to the Red Planet have safely passed through the rarefied atmosphere.
Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
A combination of heat shield, parachute and retrograde gear helped slow InSight from 13,000 mph to 5 mph in just six minutes to allow it to land on Elysium Planitia, a featureless plain north of the Curiosity rover site.
Once flapped, the spacecraft rammed a temperature probe five meters above the surface to measure the heat flowing from the planet’s core.
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Five months after landing, InSight’s seismograph recorded a faint roar. NASA scientists concluded that it came from inside the planet and called it a “Mars earthquake”.
One of InSight’s major achievements has been demonstrating that the Red Planet is indeed seismically active, logging more than 1,300 swamps.
NASA’s robotic lander, Insight. Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
NASA said the recording has launched a new field of research in “Martian seismology,” which could help learn more about how rocky planets form.
It also measured the seismic waves generated by meteor impacts, revealing the thickness of the planet’s outer crust, the size and density of the inner core, and the mantle structure that lies between them.
But there was also time for fun. The rover is famous for taking the first ‘selfie’ on Mars, using a camera attached to its robotic arm to send an image all the way to Earth.
InSight takes a “selfie” on Mars using a camera on its robotic arm.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) near Los Angeles will continue to listen for a signal from the spacecraft, just in case.
Experts say it’s unlikely to hear of InSight again.
The three-legged stationary probe made contact with Earth on December 15.
