A few weeks ago, NASA announced that the InSight mission sent to Mars would soon come to an end. Due to the large amount of dust on the red planet, the probe’s solar panels were covered, preventing its power supply. The generators would currently produce 500 Wh compared to 5,000 when it launched almost four years ago.
By December, NASA says the probe will be completely unusable. It would also seem that InSight has sent its last photograph, a “selfie”, to use the words of the space agency, which makes it possible to realize the accumulation of dust on the machinery.
Sent in November 2018, the spacecraft was intended to study seismic activity on Mars. Since its launch, the probe has thus recorded more than 13,000 earthquakes (tremors of Mars?). One of them, which took place on May 4, was quite powerful, with a magnitude of 5.
These analyzes make it possible to better understand the internal structure of the planet and even, in the long term, to observe potential plate tectonics – past or present. We know for example thanks to InSight that the Martian core is much smaller than expected.
Some functionalities will still remain usable during the next few months, in particular the seismometer. The “death” of space exploration vessels and robots is something very common given the hostility of extraterrestrial environments – temperature, radiation, dust, shock, etc.
InSight still managed to beat the estimates. Its lifespan was initially set at two years, but the spacecraft managed to almost double the latter, providing very valuable information to scientists on Earth. So long, cow-boy.
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