NASA’s InSight mission is dying a slow death, as the probe, located in the Elysium Planetia region of Mars, is gradually collecting more and more dust that was obscuring its solar panels. As the dust accumulates, the amount of energy the panels can generate decreases.
This slow slide was accelerated by a recent massive dust storm that threw more dust into the air. Not only does this mean more dust on the solar panels, but the amount of dust in the atmosphere also blocks out a lot of sunlight, further reducing the solar panels’ power generation. .
The gradual decline in energy availability and the upcoming end of the mission come as no surprise to the mission team, which has been preparing for it all this year, according to Digitartlends.
Previous creative attempts to continue the mission, such as having the probe take a dusty shower, have helped extend its life, but power levels have now dropped to just 275 watt-hours per day on Mars during a dust storm.
“We’re now on the ground floor,” InSight project manager Chuck Scott of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a statement.
The main mission of the InSight lander is to use a seismometer to detect swamps. Like earthquakes here on Earth, Mars also suffers from earthquakes.
Although, unlike Earth, Mars does not have plate tectonics, so there is an ongoing debate about the exact causes of these earthquakes.
But whatever the cause, InSight has been able to record many of these events, including a brutal earthquake earlier this year that was the most powerful earthquake ever detected on another planet. The mission also detected the sound of a meteor hitting the planet and picked up the sound of winds on Mars.
InSight’s seismometer has been working for quite some time over the past few months, but power levels are now too low to continue operating even on this reduced schedule of more than a few weeks, so the seismometer will be off for two weeks, hopefully It is possible to restart it if conditions improve.