A life-size model of the spacecraft InSight in Pasadena, California. (file)
Washington:
The InSight lander, which has been on the surface of Mars since 2018, will run out of power and cease operations within four to eight weeks, NASA said Thursday, even as scientists anticipate a large meteorite strike. also detected, which found that boulder-sized pieces of ice surprisingly close to the planet’s equator.
The InSight mission’s principal investigator, planetary geophysicist Bruce Banerdt of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told a briefing that dust is accumulating on solar panels, drawing power for the US space agency’s stationary lander, which is intensified by a dust storm. , and is draining its battery.
InSight’s mission, which has helped reveal Mars’ internal structure and its seismic activity, was originally planned for two years but was extended to four. When the power goes out, NASA will lose contact with InSight, Bannert said.
The InSight lander has been located on the surface of Mars since 2018.
“Insight has been successful beyond my expectations,” Mr Bannert told Reuters. “We have determined the thickness of the crust, the size and density of the core, and the composition of the mantle. For the first time, we have a detailed global map of the deep interior of a planet other than Earth and the moon.”
InSight also established that Mars is seismically active, having detected 1,318 earthquakes.
Two research papers published in the journal Science detailed the meteorite strikes on the Martian surface discovered by InSight in September and December last year. The seismic waves generated by the impacts revealed fresh details about the composition of the planet’s outer crust, the crust of Mars.
“What a terrifying capstone science result ends up — literally going out with a bang,” Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, told reporters.
Of particular interest was a space rock with a diameter of 16–39 ft (5–12 m), which crashed last December 24 in an area called Amazonis Planitia, about 490 ft (150 m) wide and 70 ft. There was a pit. 21 m) deep.
It caused a magnitude 4 earthquake detected by InSight’s seismometer instrument, while cameras on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter saw the crater from space. Boulder-sized blocks of ice were seen scattered around the crater’s rim.
Objects that enter Earth’s atmosphere about once a year, but typically burn up in our planet’s dense atmosphere.
“A lot of water ice was exposed by this impact,” Brown University planetary scientist Ingrid Dabur, part of the InSight science team, said at the briefing. “This was surprising because it is the hottest place on Mars, the closest to the equator we’ve ever seen with water ice.”
Ms Glaze said that while ice is known to exist near the poles of Mars, future human exploration missions will aim to keep astronauts as close to the equator as possible for warmer conditions. Ice near the equator can provide resources such as drinking water and rocket propellant.
“Having access to ice at these lower latitudes can convert that ice into water, oxygen or hydrogen – which could be really useful,” Ms Glaze said.
The September 2021 crater was even larger, measuring about 425 feet (130 m) wide. These were the two largest impacts discovered by InSight since its arrival on Mars.
An impact crater about 490 feet (150 m) by a space rock.
InSight detected for the first time seismic waves traveling along the surface of Mars like waves on water, as opposed to deep in the planet’s body. The echo of the two impacts gave clues about the crust over a wide geographic extension in the Northern Hemisphere.
Three-legged InSight sits in a vast and relatively flat plain called Elysium Planitia, just north of the equator. Until now, InSight had obtained data on the composition of the Martian crust, consisting mostly of fine-grained volcanic basalt rock, only in the area below its landing site.
The crust at the landing site was composed of a relatively softer material, less dense rock. This was not the case for the other regions covered by the new data, where the crust appears denser.
“As a result of our analysis of surface waves, we now understand that the Martian crust north of the equatorial bifurcation—a distinctive feature seen from topographical variation on Mars that divides the southern highlands and northern lowlands—has a relatively similar composition.” ,” said seismologist Dawon Kim of the Institute of Geophysics at ETH Zurich, lead author of a study.
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