After nearly four years of investigating the intestines of the planet Mars, the InSight probe will have to end its operations this summer, due to dust that has accumulated on its solar panels.
But the data collected will remain used by scientists around the world for many years to continue to improve our understanding of planet formation, NASA said in making the announcement Tuesday.
Notably equipped with an ultra-sensitive seismometer, InSight has recorded more than 1,300 mars shookincluding one of magnitude 5 just two weeks ago, the largest so far.
A nice reward before the end of the hail: around July, the seismometer will turn off. The energy level of the probe will be checked once a day, and some pictures may still be taken. Then by the end of 2022, the mission will be completely stopped.
The reason: the accumulation, over months, of Martian dust on two solar panels, each approximately 2.2 meters wide. The InSight, which now works on only a tenth of the energy it enjoys each day in the beginning, will therefore soon have its batteries flat.
The speed of dust accumulation corresponds more or less to what was estimated in advance by NASA teams.
About a year ago, they did a pretty surprising cleaning, using the dust itself. The robot’s arm dug into the ground and gently dropped the Martian earth on top of the robot. One part is carried by the wind to the solar panels, which emit a little on their surface. This technique made it possible to extend the mission.
Why not have something on board to wash the panels directly? For questions of costs, Bruce Banerdt, of Jet Propulsion Laboratory from NASA. Such a mechanism would actually infiltrate the budget allocated to scientific instruments.
InSight, one of four robots currently on the red planet – along with American rovers Perseverance and Curiosity and the Chinese Zhurong – arrived on Mars in November 2018.
Its seismometer, made in France, has enabled great development.
The interior of Mars is very far away a big question mark, explains Mr. Banerdt, who has been working on this mission for more than ten years. But thanks to InSight, for the first time in history we were able to map the interior of Mars.
Seismic waves, which vary according to the materials they pass through, offer a picture of the planet’s intestines.
For example, scientists have confirmed that the core of Mars is actually liquid, and to determine the thickness of the Martian crust, it is less dense than previously thought and probably consists of three layers.
In addition, at the beginning of May, a shock greater than all the previous ones was recorded. At magnitude 5, it is not the size of Earth, but appears to be close to what scientists think they have observed the most on Mars.
This twitch is really going to be a wealth of scientific information when we actually get it.rejoiced at Bruce Banerdt.
On our planet, earthquakes are notably caused by plate tectonics, but not only that, he explains. In particular, the earth’s crust can move under the effect of temperature anomalies caused by the mantle beneath it. This is the kind of vibration that scientists think they face on Mars.
The InSight mission also experienced a failure: an instrument had to be buried a few meters deep below the surface to capture the planet’s temperature. But because of the composition of the ground where the robot landed, it was nunal did not sink as expected.
Either way, because of the success of the seismometer, NASA is considering using the method elsewhere in the future, says Lori Glaze, the director of planetary sciences: We wanted to set up a complete network on the Moon, to really understand what was going on there.
Source: Radio-Canada
