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Pasadena, Calif. (Reuters) – NASA's Insight has landed safely on Mars on Monday, at the start of a two-year mission, as the first spacecraft designed to study the depths. from another world.
The descent is the culmination of a six-month trip after the probe sank a distance of 548 million kilometers from Earth, starting in California in May.
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The probe carries equipment to monitor temperatures and earthquakes on Mars, which has never been measured off the planet. The probe penetrated the Martian atmosphere at 19,775 kilometers per hour.
But its speed on its journey to the surface of the planet, about 124 kilometers, was reduced by friction with the atmosphere, as well as a giant umbrella and braking missiles. The probe touched the surface of the planet about six and a half minutes later and landed as planned in the flat area near the planet's equator.
The Insight will spend 24 months, the equivalent of a year of March, to take seismic and thermal measurements to better understand how Mars, the origin of the Earth and of the Earth. other rocky planets form the inner solar system.
The 360-kilogram probe is the 21st American exploration of Mars. The United States began its first flights to Mars in the 1960s, while other countries launched about 24 flights to the planet.
(Reuters)
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