Get ready for Perseverance’s landing on Mars February 18

Some call attempts to land on Mars “7 minutes of terror.” The Perseverance mission will provide the most detailed video and photos of a landing yet. We’ll watch ourselves land on another planet, for the first time ever. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/get-ready-nasa-perseverance-landing-feb2021…

Three things NASA learned from Mars InSight

NASA’s InSight spacecraft touched down Nov. 26, 2018, on Mars to study the planet’s deep interior. A little more than one Martian year later, the stationary lander has detected more than 480 quakes and collected the most comprehensive weather data of any surface mission sent to Mars. InSight’s probe, which has struggled to dig underground to take the planet’s temperature, has…

InSight detects gravity waves, low rumbles and devilish dust

More than a year after NASA’s Mars InSight lander touched down in a pebble-filled crater on the Martian equator, the rusty red planet is now serving up its meteorological secrets: Gravity waves, surface swirling “dust devils,” and the steady, low rumble of infrasound, Cornell and other researchers have found. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-02-insight-gravity-rumbles-devilish.html…

Mars InSight lander to push on top of the ‘mole’

After nearly a year of trying to dig into the Martian surface, the heat probe belonging to NASA’s InSight lander is about to get a push. The mission team plans to command the scoop on InSight’s robotic arm to press down on the “mole,” the mini pile driver designed to hammer itself as much as 16 feet (5 meters) down. They…

Mars InSight’s ‘mole’ is moving again

NASA’s InSight spacecraft has used its robotic arm to help its heat probe, known as “the mole,” dig nearly 2 centimeters (3/4 of an inch) over the past week. While modest, the movement is significant: Designed to dig as much as 16 feet (5 meters) underground to gauge the heat escaping from the planet’s interior, the mole has only managed to…

NASA’s push to save the Mars InSight lander’s heat probe

NASA’s InSight lander, which is on a mission to explore the deep interior of Mars, positioned its robotic arm this past weekend to assist the spacecraft’s self-hammering heat probe. Known as “the mole,” the probe has been unable to dig more than about 14 inches (35 centimeters) since it began burying itself into the ground on Feb. 28, 2019. Source: https://phys.org/news/2019-10-nasa-mars-insight-lander-probe.html…

Listen to the sounds of Mars

Here are some of the noises picked up by NASA’s Insight spacecraft since it landed on Mars almost a year ago. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/insight-lander-sounds-mars-listen-audio…