Title: NASA’s InSight Lander Discovers Mars’ Rotation Speed is Increasing
Subtitle: New data collected by the InSight lander provides insights into the mysterious changes on the red planet
(ATLANTA) – NASA’s InSight lander has revealed that Mars is rotating at a faster rate than previously observed. InSight, which was active for four years on the red planet before retiring, collected crucial data that unveiled the planet’s shifting rotation.
Equipped with sophisticated instruments including antennae and a radio transponder called RISE (Rotation and Interior Structure Experiment), InSight tracked Mars’ rotation for the first 900 days of its mission. Astronomers determined that Mars’ spin is accelerating by approximately 4 milliarcseconds per year², resulting in a fraction of a millisecond decrease in the length of a Martian day each year. Currently, a day on Mars is about 40 minutes longer than on Earth.
While the acceleration seems minuscule, scientists are still unsure about the cause. Two potential factors that could contribute to the increase are ice accumulation at the Martian poles and the rise of landmasses from beneath the ice. Variations in a planet’s mass distribution can lead to changes in its rotation speed.
The findings, based on an analysis of InSight data before it ran out of power, were recently published in the journal Nature.
Originally planned for a two-year mission after landing in November 2018, NASA extended the InSight mission by an additional two years. The spacecraft continued to gather data until December 2022 when its solar panels were obstructed by dust, leaving it unable to receive sunlight.
Utilizing the Deep Space Network, scientists transmitted signals to RISE on the InSight lander, which then bounced them back to Earth. These signals helped researchers track minute frequency changes linked to the Doppler shift. By correlating these frequency changes with Mars’ rotation, astronomers were able to detect variations that had only been anticipated.
Lead author Sebastien Le Maistre, RISE’s principal investigator at the Royal Observatory of Belgium, explained, “It takes a very long time and a lot of data to accumulate before we can even see these variations.”
In addition to its discovery about Mars’ rotation speed, the InSight mission provided further insights into the planet’s interior. By measuring Mars’ wobble, or nutation, scientists estimated the size of its molten metal core. According to the RISE data, the core has a radius of around 1,140 miles. By combining this information with seismic wave measurements within Mars, researchers estimate the core’s radius to be between 1,112 and 1,150 miles.
Although InSight is now inactive, its extensive collection of data has revolutionized our understanding of Mars. It was the first mission to unveil the mysteries of the planet’s interior. Scientists anticipate studying this data for years to come.
Bruce Banerdt, InSight’s principal investigator, expressed his excitement over the new findings, stating, “Results like this make all those decades of work worth it.”
As we delve deeper into the mysteries of Mars, these newfound discoveries bring us closer to unraveling the secrets of our neighboring planet.
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