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The "mole of Mars", as the InSight researchers call it, traveled 485 million kilometers to reach the red planet on Monday. His mission will be to investigate the interior of Martian territory ; to study the composition of the soil and the processes that develop beneath its surface. It will also measure the temperatures and conductivity of the inner layers of the planet.
Tilman Spohn, scientific director of the experiment, explains that "each planet is in principle a thermal machine, the residual heat generated by a machine of this type is a measure of the work done by the engine. formation of the planet. "
The study of Mars would help us better understand our planet.
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InSight will land in the region Elysium Planitia north of the Martian equator. It is a fairly flat area and devoid of large stones and rocks. The missions that hit Mars so far have not studied this part of the planet since the surface. The closest device is the NASA "Curiosity" device, located about 500 km away. Unlike "Curiosity", InSight will not move but will remain on the landing site.
As soon as the module is secure, the search for an optimal location for the "topo" will begin. A robotic arm that carries "InSight" will lift the HP3 up there. "At the landing site with (between three and seven meters) loose material on the ground," says DLR's Matthias Grott. This is important because the HP3 is designed to remove sand. "If we meet a big rock and we can not continue, it's over," he warns.
Otherwise, the HP3 does not look like a mole at all, but a small rocket: it's a 40-centimeter long stem that ends in a point. He will conduct excavations in increments of 50 centimeters to a depth of five meters. For this, it has an electronic and automatic hammer mechanism. The instrument is connected to the InSight so that scientists can measure the underground heat flux. If all goes well, the data will be sent to Earth for two years.
Another device, the seismograph, will also be used to measure possible earthquakes and earthquakes on Mars. The moon has been doing this for years, but on Mars it has not been achieved yet.
For Spohn and his colleagues, this mission is important for drawing conclusions about our own planet. "As inhabitants of the Earth, we saw how special it is when we studied other planets," he says. "Science is largely in comparison."
The InSight mission, which cost about 650 million euros should have actually started in 2016. But because of problems encountered with the instruments, the takeoff had to be delayed for two years. The design of the 360-kilogram module relies mainly on the Phoenix space probe, which landed on Mars in 2008.
Today, he arrives at Mars then
This is the first module of the US space agency on Mars since Curiosity in 2012 and researchers are nervous. According to NASA, only 40% of the missions launched around the world on the red planet have been successful. The European Space Agency (ESA) suffered in 2016 from the difficulty of landing on the neighboring planet: its Schiaparelli probe crashed during the approach flight following a computer failure . This Monday, NASA will not be the only one to follow the landing of InSigh "because it will be broadcast live for everyone.
Although it has not yet landed on Martian soil, the robot already has a successor .. will start the March 2020 rover, a kind of improved version of Curiosity.
Source: agencies
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