The InSight lander, NASA’s latest foray to the red planet, has landed.
Cheers erupted on Monday at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., which operates the spacecraft, when InSight sent back acknowledgment of its safe arrival on Mars. That was the end of a journey of more than six months and 300 million miles.
As InSight descended and each milestone of the landing process was called out, “the hairs on the back of my neck would start rising a little bit higher, a little bit higher,” Tom Hoffman, the project manager for the mission, said at a news conference after the landing. “And then when we finally got the confirmation of touchdown, it was completely amazing. The whole room went crazy. My inner four-year-old came out.”
In the months ahead, InSight will begin its study of the Martian underworld, listening for tremors — marsquakes — and collect data that will be pieced together in a map of the interior of the red planet and help would help scientists understand how Mars and other rocky planets formed.
Those lessons could also shed light on Earth’s origins.
“We can basically use Mars as a time machine to go back and look at what the Earth must have looked like a few tens of millions of years after it formed,” said Bruce Banerdt, the principal investigator of the mission.
InSight set down at Elysium Planitia, near the Equator in the northern hemisphere. Mission scientists have described the region as resembling a parking lot or “Kansas without the corn.” Within minutes, the first photograph from InSight appeared on the screen, eliciting another round of cheers.
The image was partially obscured by dirt kicked up onto a protective but clear lens cover, but it was evident that the landscape was indeed flat. One rock could be seen in the foreground.
“I’m very very happy that it looks like we have an incredibly safe and boring-looking landing location,” Mr. Hoffman said.
Because the mission is not interested in rocky terrain or pretty sunsets, planners wanted a flat place with sandy soil. “There’s one rock, so I’m going to have to talk to them a little bit,” Mr. Hoffman joked.
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