Looking at the dusty expanse of the Martian lava plain, about 87 million kilometers away, NASA’s Mars Insight probe may have sent home its last view of the Red Planet. Since it began collecting data in early 2019, the probe has revolutionized our understanding of the interior of Mars. Its solar panels are now covered in dust, and its power inverting capability is only a matter of time before Mars InSight is turned off forever.
And NASA announced back in May that InSight science operations would likely cease by the end of the year. But the harsh reality is now approaching, and we have to say goodbye to the Mars pioneer.
In its tweet, NASA revealed what is likely to be the last image we’ll see from InSight, as its power is too low for large data transfers.
And unlike other robotic laboratories exploring Mars, such as Curiosity and Perseverance, InSight is not a rover. Rather, once deployed, the rover was positioned in one spot on the surface of Mars, at the boundary between the cratered southern highlands and the smoother, drab northern lowlands. There, the probe, equipped with an array of instruments designed to monitor inner planetary activity, discovered that Mars is not as dead as we had long assumed.
Instead, the interior of the Red Planet is marred by seismic and possibly volcanic activity. This is incredible information for a number of reasons.
First, all this internal activity generates seismic sound waves that bounce back inside Mars, giving seismologists the information they need to create the first-ever detailed map of Mars’ internal structure.
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