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CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) – A few minutes after landing on Mars, NASA's InSight spacecraft returned a "nice and dirty snapshot" of its new digs. Yet the dust-stained image looked like a work of art for scientists.
The photo revealed a mostly smooth and sandy terrain around the probe with only one visible rock.
"I'm very happy to be in. It looks like our landing site is incredibly safe and boring," said project manager Tom Hoffman after Monday's touchdown. "That's exactly what we were looking for."
A better picture comes hours later and we expect more in the coming days, after the dust covers have come off the cameras of the LG.
The probe arrived in March after a disaster, Supersonic dive through its red sky that took only six minutes.
"The touch is confirmed!" a flight controller called just before 3 pm EST, causing jubilation among scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who were eagerly waiting for the word "White Knuckle" to be heard to clear a distance of 160 millions of kilometers.
This was the eighth successful landing of NASA. in Mars since the 1976 Viking probes, and the first in six years. The NASA Curiosity robot, arrived in 2012, is still moving on Mars.
Due to the distance between Earth and Mars, it took eight minutes for the confirmation to arrive, relayed by a pair of tiny satellites that followed InSight. throughout the six-month trip, 300 million miles (482 million kilometers).
"Flawless," said Rob Manning, chief engineer of JPL. "Sometimes things work in your favor."
InSight, a $ 1 billion international project, includes a German mole that will dig a depth of 5 meters to measure the internal heat of Mars. The lander also has a French seismometer to measure earthquakes, if they exist in our neighbor smaller and geologically quieter. Another experiment will calculate the oscillation of Mars to reveal the composition of the planet's nucleus.
On Monday night, NASA announced that vital spacecraft solar panels were open and recharging its batteries.
During the next "soils" – or Martian days The flight controllers will evaluate the state of health of InSight's robotic arm and its scientific instruments. It will take months to configure and adjust the instruments, and senior scientist Bruce Banerdt said he was not expecting to receive a flow of reliable data by the end of next spring.
Banerdt described the first snapshot of the surface as InSight. first part of science, although "nice and dirty." He said that the image would be cleaned up and the black spots would disappear. This picture came from a low camera on the undercarriage. Late Monday, NASA released a sharp photo taken by a top camera showing some of the lander and landscape.
The 360-pound InSight (360 kg) is stationary and will work at the same location for two years. The duration of a Martian year.
"In the months and years to come, history books will be rewritten on the inside of March," said JPL director Michael Watkins.
NASA has adopted its old and direct approach. This time, using a parachute and braking motors, the speed of InSight goes from 12,300 km / h (19,800 km / h) when it pierces the Martian atmosphere, about 77 miles ( 114 km), at 5 mph (8 km / h) at touchdown. The danger was that the spacecraft could be consumed in the atmosphere or bouncing back.
Many spacecraft bound for Mars launched by the United States, Russia and other countries have been lost or destroyed over the years, with a success rate of only 40 percent, not to mention InSight.
The three feet of InSight settled on the west side of Elysium Planitia, the plain that NASA was aiming for.
Museums, planetariums and libraries in the United States organized watching sessions to observe the unfolding of events. at JPL. NASA TV also broadcasted the giant screen of Times Square in New York, where the crowd huddled under an umbrella in the rain.
"What an amazing day for our country," said Jim Bridenstine, presiding over his first landing on Mars as NASA boss.
According to Banerdt, the well-preserved interior of Mars provides a glimpse of what the Earth might have looked like after its formation 4.5 billion years ago. While Earth is seismically active, Mars "decided to rest on its laurels" after its training, he added.
By examining and mapping inside Mars, scientists hope to understand why the rocky planets of our solar system have turned out to be so different. and why the Earth has become a refuge for life.
Still, there are no life sensors onboard InSight. NASA's next mission, the March 2020 Rover, will be looking for rocks that may contain traces of ancient life. The question of whether life ever existed in the wet, watery past of Mars is what brings NASA back to the sun since the fourth rock.
After the landing of InSight, the two experimental satellites flew over Mars, their main work was accomplished. We took one last shot of the red planet that satellite chief engineer Andy Klesh called "Farewell to InSight … farewell to Mars."
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For full coverage of the March landing by AP: https: //apnews.com/MarsLanding
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The Science and Health Department of the Associated Press receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Scientific Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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