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Before and after satellite images of the Amazoni Planitia on Mars revealed scars from a recent meteor strike, a seismic event observed by the Mars InSight lander on Dec. 24, & 25, 2021.
Credit...NASA
NASA’s InSight mission has ended after more than four years of collecting unique science on Mars.
Mission controllers at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California were unable to contact the lander after two consecutive attempts, leading them to conclude the spacecraft’s solar-powered batteries have run out of energy – a state engineers refer to as “dead bus.”
NASA had previously decided to declare the mission over if the lander missed two communication attempts. The agency will continue to listen for a signal from the lander, just in case, but hearing from it at this point is considered unlikely. The last time InSight communicated with Earth was Dec. 15.
Here is an image of the final selfie taken by NASA's InSight Mars lander on April 24, 2022, the 1,211th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The lander is covered with far more dust than it was in its first selfie, taken in December 2018, not long after landing – or in its second selfie, composed of images taken in March and April 2019.
Image Credit: NASA
#NASA #jpl #jetpropulsionlaboratory #marshallspaceflightcenter #msfc #mars #moontomars #planet #space #InSightLander
A pair of quakes in 2021 sent seismic waves deep into the Red Planet’s core, giving scientists the best data yet on its size and composition.
While NASA retired its InSight Mars lander in December, the trove of data from its seismometer will be pored over for decades to come. By looking at seismic waves the instrument detected from a pair of temblors in 2021, scientists have been able to deduce that Mars’ liquid iron core is smaller and denser than previously thought.
The findings, which mark the first direct observations ever made of another planet’s core, were detailed in a paper published April 24 in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences. Occurring on Aug. 25 and Sept. 18, 2021, the two temblors were the first identified by the InSight team to have originated on the opposite side of the planet from the lander – so-called farside quakes. The distance proved crucial: The farther a quake happens from InSight, the deeper into the planet its seismic waves can travel before being detected.
This is one of the last images ever taken by NASA’s InSight Mars lander. Captured on Dec. 11, 2022, the 1,436th Martian day, or sol, of the mission, it shows InSight’s seismometer on the Red Planet’s surface.
Image Credit: NASA
#NASA #jpl #jetpropulsionlaboratory #marshallspaceflightcenter #msfc #mars #moontomars #planet #space #InSightLander
NASA’s InSight lander recorded a magnitude 4 marsquake last Dec. 24, but scientists learned only later the cause of that quake: a meteoroid strike estimated to be one of the biggest seen on Mars since NASA began exploring the cosmos. What’s more, the meteoroid excavated boulder-size chunks of ice buried closer to the Martian equator than ever found before – a discovery with implications for NASA’s future plans to send astronauts to the Red Planet.
Scientists determined the quake resulted from a meteoroid impact when they looked at before-and-after images from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and spotted a new, yawning crater. Offering a rare opportunity to see how a large impact shook the ground on Mars, the event and its effects are detailed in two papers published Thursday, Oct. 27, in the journal Science.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
#NASA #jpl #jetpropulsionlaboratory #marshallspaceflightcenter #msfc #mars #moontomars #planet #space #MarsReconnaissanceOrbiter #MRO #InSightLander
More about the InSight Mars Lander
NASA’s InSight Lander Detects Stunning Meteoroid Impact on Mars
NASA’s InSight lander recorded a magnitude 4 marsquake last Dec. 24, but scientists learned only later the cause of that quake: a meteoroid strike estimated to be one of the biggest seen on Mars since NASA began exploring the cosmos.
What’s more, the meteoroid excavated boulder-size chunks of ice buried closer to the Martian equator than ever found before – a discovery with implications for NASA’s future plans to send astronauts to the Red Planet.
Scientists determined the quake resulted from a meteoroid impact when they looked at before-and-after images from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and spotted a new, yawning crater. Offering a rare opportunity to see how a large impact shook the ground on Mars, the event and its effects are detailed in two papers published Thursday, Oct. 27, in the journal Science.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
#NASA #jpl #jetpropulsionlaboratory #marshallspaceflightcenter #msfc #mars #moontomars #planet #space #MarsReconnaissanceOrbiter #MRO #InSightLander
A European antenna in Australia will soon be tracking a US mission currently preparing to land on Mars.
ESA’s New Norcia antenna is situated in the red and dusty desert of Western Australia, seen here under the twinkling lights of the Milky Way. From here, it will provide support to NASA’s InSight lander, which is scheduled to touch down on the similarly dry and dusty landscape of the Red Planet, at 20:00 UTC (21:00 CET) on Monday 26 November.
About 12 hours before the landing, and during the very last ‘Target Correction Manoeuvre’ before Insight enters the martian atmosphere to land, this 35-metre deep space antenna will make contact with the lander.
A crucial part of ESA’s Estrack network, the New Norcia antenna routinely supports ESA missions voyaging throughout the Solar System, including Mars Express, ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), Gaia and BepiColombo.
ESA’s TGO will join with NASA orbiters to pick up data signals from InSight once it has landed, and relay these back to Earth, providing the first-ever routine data relay support between missions of different agencies at Mars.
You can watch the landing live on Monday from 19:00 UTC (20:00 CET), via NASA’s webcast.
Credits: ESA/D. O'Donnell, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Launch window: 1105-1305 GMT (7:05-9:05 a.m. EDT; 4:05-6:05 a.m. PDT)
Launch site: SLC-3E, Vandenberg Air Force Base, California
A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, designated AV-078, will launch NASA’s InSight lander to Mars. InSight will touch down in the Elysium Planitia region of Mars in November 2018 to study the Martian interior and search for ongoing seismic activity. The rocket will fly in the 401 vehicle configuration with a four-meter fairing, no solid rocket boosters and a single-engine Centaur upper stage. Delayed from March 2016. [March 2]
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Image taken at 2018:05:05 04:09:14
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Lockheed Martin Chairman and CEO Marillyn Hewson presents Orion commemorative items to Vice President Mike Pence at the end of his tour of Lockheed Martin’s space facility on Oct. 26. The American flag and other items were flown on Orion’s inaugural mission in 2014, paving the way for human deep space travel.
Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of the Air Force Dr. Heather Wilson (in ball caps) greet Lockheed Martin’s GPS III employees in their clean room near Denver. Scheduled to launch next year, GPS III is a powerful upgrade to the nation’s precision timing and navigation constellation.
Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of the Air Force Dr. Heather Wilson (in ball caps) tour Lockheed Martin’s GPS III clean room near Denver. Scheduled to launch next year, GPS III is a powerful upgrade to the nation’s precision timing and navigation constellation.
Secretary of the Air Force Dr. Heather Wilson prepares to put on a virtual reality headset during a visit to Lockheed Martin’s facility near Denver. She and Vice President Mike Pence visited the Collaborative Human Immersive Laboratory, which is one of the largest virtual / augmented reality labs in the aerospace industry.
Vice President Mike Pence and NASA Associate Administrator Thomas Zurbuchen pause outside the Mars InSight clean room at Lockheed Martin’s facility near Denver. Lockheed Martin is building the next Mars lander for NASA, which will launch in May.
Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of the Air Force Dr. Heather Wilson (in ball caps) greet Lockheed Martin’s GPS III employees in their clean room near Denver. Scheduled to launch next year, GPS III is a powerful upgrade to the nation’s precision timing and navigation constellation.
Launch of the NASA Mars InSight mission, May 5 2018, from Tucson Arizona.
I didn't think there was too much chance of catching it, since it was very far away (off the California coast) and might not be high enough to be visible. But there it is, across the bottom of the frame.
RAW Live Composite file (618 one second exposures at f5.6,, OM 50mm f1.8 lens) processed with RAW Therapee.
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Out of this world public domain images from NASA. All original images and many more can be found from the NASA Image Library
Higher resolutions with no attribution required can be downloaded: www.rawpixel.com/board/418580/nasa