Watch InSight's successful landing on Mars: Difference between revisions
Watch InSight's successful landing on Mars (edit)
Revision as of 02:27, 27 November 2018
, 5 years agono edit summary
No edit summary |
No edit summary |
||
Line 12:
[[File:NASA-InSightLander-FirstImageFrom Mars-20181126.png|thumb|center|500px|First image from the Mars Insight lander. The dusty lens cover will be removed - it was there to protect the camera from dust thrown up by the landing itself]]Some points of interest about this mission:
[[File:PIA22745-Mars-InSightLander-ArtistConcept-20181030.jpg|thumb|InSight lander artistic impression]]
* For astrobiologists, one particularly interesting thing about this lander is that it is the first one to use a robotic mole. It will drill to a depth of 16 feet (about 5 meters). This is of interest for astrobiology, especially for the search for past life. ExoMars will be able to drill to 2 meters using a different technique and nothing else has been able to drill to anything like this depth. Viking scraped a shallow trench and most just drill mms into rocks. For Insight though it's not an astrobiology mission, it's drilling in order to get a heat profile depending on depth. But it is the first test of robotic mole technology on Mars
The UK [[Beagle 2]] lander was the first and only previous mission to send a small robotic mole to Mars, it landed successfully but sadly wasn't able to open the last of its solar panels and signal back to Earth. It is pioneering technology that could be useful for future astrobiological missions to Mars, though sadly Mars 2020 won't have a drill able to drill to any significant depth. ExoMars will, to a depth of 2 meters, but using a different method.
Its seismometer may even be able to detect liquid water or magma plumes from active volcanoes below the surface. See [https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/spacecraft/instruments/seis/ Measuring the Pulse of Mars (NASA)]▼
In the press conferences they said that the self hammering mole can nudge its way past rocks of up to 2 cms width, can also get past rocks that present a slanting face but if it hits a flat rock face on it just has to stop. Where it landed they think it can probably reach to a depth of about 10 feet and possibly the full depth of 16 feet (5 meters). That would be a useful depth for searches for organics of past life not deteriorated by the cummulative effects of hundreds of millions to billions of years of surface cosmic radiation.
▲
'''''Speculation''''': I've wondered if their seismometer will be able to detect the layer of brines that Curiosity found just a few cms below the surface - through its recording of the reverberations of the self hammering mole which they said could give them some insights into the structure of the land. The self hammering mole will also be releasing pulses of heat and recording how they are transmitted with temperature sensors all along its cable as it descends. Curiosity found that it forms every day overnight and dries out in the daytime as it warms up below the sand dunes. Not sure but the Elysia Planitium might be suitable ground for it to form. Could the mole detect these?
| |||