An illustration of twin cube satellites called MarCO A and B, which launched with InSight. Picture: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s $993 million Mars InSight lander has successfully touched down on the Red Planet to listen for quakes and study how rocky planets formed, the US space agency has said.
“Touchdown confirmed,” a mission control operator said as cheers erupted and scientists leapt from their seats to hug each other at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Within a minute of landing, the lander sent its first photograph of the Martian terrain, showing no rocks but a smooth surface. The specks on the photo are said to be grains of dust kicked up during the landing, which will be removed from the camera’s protective lens soon.
Mars InSight’s goal is to listen for quakes and tremors as a way to unveil the Red Planet’s inner mysteries, how it formed billions of years ago and, by extension, how other rocky planets like Earth took shape.
The unmanned spacecraft is NASA’s first to touch down on Earth’s neighboring planet since the Curiosity rover arrived in 2012.
More than half of 43 attempts to reach Mars with rovers, orbiters and probes by space agencies from around the world have failed.
NASA is the only space agency to have made it, and is invested in these robotic missions as a way to prepare for the first Mars-bound human explorers in the 2030s.
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