NASA’s InSight mission is slowly dying as the spacecraft, located in the Elysium Planetia region of Mars, is gradually collecting more and more dust that was obscuring its solar panels. can generate decreases.
This slow sliding has been accelerated by a recent massive dust storm that has thrown more dust into the air.Not only does this mean more dust on the solar panels, but the amount of dust in the atmosphere also blocks out a lot of sunlight, further reducing production. of energy from solar panels. .
The gradual decline in energy availability and the imminent end of the mission comes as no surprise to the mission team, which has been preparing throughout this year, according to Digitartlends.
Previous creative attempts to continue the mission, such as giving the probe a dusty shower, helped extend its life, but now power levels have dropped to just 275 watt-hours per day on Mars during a sandstorm.
“We are now on the ground floor,” said Chuck Scott, InSight project manager of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The main mission of the InSight lander is to use a seismometer to detect swamps. Like earthquakes here on Earth, Mars also suffers from earthquakes.
Although, unlike Earth, Mars does not have plate tectonics, so a debate is underway about the exact causes of these earthquakes.
But whatever the cause, InSight was able to record many of these events, including a brutal earthquake earlier this year which was the most powerful earthquake ever detected on another planet. of a meteor that hit the planet and detected the sound of the winds on Mars.
InSight’s seismometer has been working for some time in the past few months, but the power levels are now too low to continue working even with this reduced schedule of more than a few weeks, so the seismometer will be off for two weeks, yes hopes. can be restarted if conditions improve.
