NASA InSight Mars Lander

[FighterJock]

Insight R.I.P.?

On Dec. 18, 2022, NASA’s InSight did not respond to communications from Earth. The lander’s power has been declining for months, as expected, and it’s assumed InSight may have reached its end of operations. It’s unknown what prompted the change in its energy; the last time the mission contacted the spacecraft was on Dec. 15, 2022.

The mission will continue to try and contact InSight.

NASA InSight – Dec. 19, 2022 – Mars InSight

blogs.nasa.gov

It will be sad if true for InSight, I would think that JPL would try to keep in contact to see if it was just a glitch in the communications at that time when they sent the signal. Though I would not be surprised at the loss of signal from InSight as the lander was loosing power gradually since the summer.

 

[FighterJock]

Sad news about NASAs InSight lander, after four years on the surface of Mars InSight has now been declared dead and the lander has now been officially retired. R.I.P. InSight.

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-retires-insight-mars-lander-mission-after-years-of-science

 

[Flyaway]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1692967513577947216

View: https://twitter.com/haygenwarren/status/1692967513577947216

Although its mission ended in December, data from NASA’s InSight lander is allowing scientists to continue making new discoveries about Mars.

In fact, one team of scientists recently discovered that Mars’ rotational speed is accelerating

Using data from InSight, scientists discover that Mars is rotating faster - NASASpaceFlight.com

In December 2022, NASA lost contact with its Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and…

www.nasaspaceflight.com

 

[FighterJock]

Highly interesting Flyaway. Mars rotation speeding up. I wonder what the cause is? Perhaps it is the core not being solidified as it was once thought to be and that is having an effect on the rotation.

 

[Flyaway]

The strongest-ever quake to violently shake Mars arose not because of a crashing asteroidbut rather the tectonic forces within the planet itself, scientists reported on Tuesday (Oct. 17). The new findings show the Red Planet is more seismically active than previously thought.

On May 4, 2022, NASA's now-retired InSight lander recorded a magnitude 4.7 quake, five times stronger than the previous record holder of magnitude 4.2 that InSight measured in 2021. Unlike most marsquakes that cease within an hour, the reverberations from the May 2022 quake continued for a record six hours, marking the strongest and longest quake ever recorded on another planet.

Scientists finally solve mystery of strongest Marsquake ever detected

The strongest recorded Marsquake, which rattled for six hours in May 2022, left no visible traces on the Red Planet surface. Now, scientists think they know what caused it.

www.livescience.com

Related paper:

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023GL103619

 

[Flyaway]

The core of Mars can look bigger than it actually is because of a previously unknown layer of molten rock surrounding it, scientists suggest with a pair of new studies.

…

Since the 2021 studies appeared, InSight detected more Martian seismic waves, produced by a meteorite impact on Mars far away from the lander. "The impact produced a lot of energy, generating seismic waves that traversed the core of Mars," Khan said. "Up until then, we didn't have any of those to examine. They allowed us to gain a completely new picture of the interior of Mars, especially deep structures that we couldn't illuminate before."

Two new studies now estimate the center of Mars is about 2,050 to 2,080 miles (3,300 to 3,350 km) in diameter. All in all, the Martian core "is 30 percent smaller in volume than previous estimates," Henri Samuel, a planetary dynamicist at Paris Cité University in France, told Space.com.

Thanks to a layer of molten rock, Mars' core appears bigger than it is

In 2021, scientists studying Mars' core found it to be surprisingly large and light. Now, we might have an explanation for the strange measurements.

www.space.com

Related papers:

Evidence for a liquid silicate layer atop the Martian core - Nature

Using multiply diffracted P waves and first-principles computations of the thermoelastic properties of liquid iron-rich alloys, we show that the core of Mars is smaller and denser than previously thought.

www.nature.com

Geophysical evidence for an enriched molten silicate layer above Mars’s core - Nature

We provide observational evidence that suggests the presence of a molten silicate layer above the core of Mars, which is overlain by a partially molten layer, indicating that the core of Mars is smaller than previously thought.

www.nature.com

 

[Flyaway]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1810083909171863913

View: https://twitter.com/haygenwarren/status/1810083909171863913

Scientists have calculated the rate of meteoroid impacts on Mars using seismic measurements from NASA’s retired InSight lander. Two new studies estimate much higher impact rates than were previously derived from orbital spacecraft.

By Martijn Luinstra

InSight reveals high meteoroid impact rate on Mars - NASASpaceFlight.com

Scientists have calculated the rate of meteoroid impacts on Mars using seismic measurements NASA’s retired…

www.nasaspaceflight.com

 

[FighterJock]

So InSight is still contributing to science even though it has now stopped working.

 

[TomcatViP]

Insight data reveals how deep underground Mars layers are saturated with a vast quantity of water:

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/12/science/mars-crust-water-reservoir-insight/index.html

 

[FighterJock]

I wonder if a future manned Mars mission could perhaps drill down to the water and use it for drinking and washing, it would also be interesting to see how much water is down there below the surface.

 

[Arjen]

At a depth between 11.5 and 20 km, drilling to the water-saturated crust is quite challenging.
On Earth, the record borehole is 12,262m deep.

Kola Superdeep Borehole - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Drilling that hole started in September 1986, stopped in 1989.

 

[FighterJock]

Ah! thanks Arjen, so when we go to Mars we will have to transport the water the conventional way from the poles by pipes to the base.