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Mars InSight Lander of NASA sits on the Martian surface on Monday and has not wasted time bringing the first picture back to Earth.
"My first photo on #March! My lens cover is not off yet, but I only had to show you a first look at my new home," tweeted NASA, showing the first image.
The Lander InSight entered the atmosphere of Mars shortly after 14:40. EST and hit the surface around 14:54. IS. The last part of the trip was the most painful, NASA calling it "seven minutes of terror" because of the agency's inability to control the probe's landing, which cost $ 828 million. The scientists determined that no further modification was needed in the algorithm that will guide the spacecraft to the Martian surface.
THE INSIGHT OF NASA, MARCH LANDER, ARRIVES ON THE RED PLANET, END OF A SUCCESSFUL JOURNEY
The landing of InSight Monday ended a six-month trip covering more than 300 million miles.
Now that she is safe, the real excitement begins, according to Lori Glaze, acting director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA headquarters. "Once InSight is installed on the Red Planet and its instruments are deployed, it will begin to collect valuable information about the structure of deep inside Mars – information that will help us understand the formation and the evolution of all rocky planets, including the one we call home, "she said.
The unmanned probe, built by Lockheed Martin, will dig deeper into the planet than anything that has been done before.
Mars appears more and more in the future of the American space.
The long-term goal of NASA is to send an inhabited mission to Mars in the 2030s. However, former astronaut Buzz Aldrin thinks that a slightly later target date of 2040 is more realistic. In an interview in 2016, Astronaut Gemini 12 and Apollo 11 told Fox News that by 2040, astronauts could have gone to the Phobos moon, which could serve as a springboard to the red planet .
NASA GOES TO MARCH BY "SEVEN MINUTES OF TERROR"
The space agency announced last week that it had chosen where its Mars 2020 rover would land on the red planet. The Rover is expected to land on Mars on February 18, 2021.
James Rogers of Fox News contributed to this story. Follow Chris Ciaccia on Twitter @chris_ciaccia
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