If you've been paying attention to astronomy news over the last 48 hours, you can't have possibly missed the successful landing of the Mars InSight lander on the surface of Mars! Although NASA has had much success landing spacecraft on Mars in recent years, historically about half of missions to Mars have failed. So despite the recent successes, there were a lot of nervous scientists, engineers, and science lovers this past Monday, November 26.
On Monday, November 26 @ approximately 2:55 PM EST, the InSight lander sent back a signal after successfully landing on Mars. Woohoo! Shortly after it sent back its first image.
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| Surface image of Mars - NASA/JPL-Caltech |
The above image may not look great, but this is the first image sent back and there is a dust cover with dust from the landing. This will be cleared in future images and soon InSight will be sending back amazing pictures of the Martian surface.
Imaging is not the primary goal of this mission, however. This will be the first Mars mission to study the interior of the planet. InSight has a drill that will dig 16 feet deep into the Martian soil, providing astronomers with data they have never before had! Stay tuned to this lander as results come in. You can keep up to date by following NASA's page on InSight and by following Insight on Twitter.
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