2:29pm
Wednesday 21 December 2022
The US space agency, NASA, has published, in a tweet on its Twitter account, an image that could be the last sent by the Insight probe to Mars, about 3 years after its journey, which is about to end.
The InSight spacecraft, which began collecting data in early 2019 and revolutionizing our understanding of Mars, now faces its painful fate: Its solar panels are covered in dust, its power supply is low, and it’s waiting to be shut down for always.
Described as the forerunner of Mars, InSight is a stationary rather than mobile probe, making its home on the border between the cratered southern highlands and the smoother, more monotonous northern lowlands. There, the probe, equipped with a series of instruments designed to monitor internal planetary activity, discovered that Mars is not dead as we had long assumed, but rather that the interior of the Red Planet is marred by seismic activity and possibly volcanic.
Its instruments are also sensitive enough to detect meteorites hitting Mars, which scientists have tracked to new craters. This information may help scientists better understand the history of the Mars impact, according to the specialized science site ScienceAlert.
