Tag: insight
NASA’s InSight mission is winding down — a look back at the Mars lander’s many accomplishments
Another Mars robot is settling in for a long, long sleep. With dust caking its solar panels, InSight has been losing the ability to recharge for months — in the spring, it was operating at just one-tenth of its landing power. Now the thick layers of dust might have doomed InSight for good. NASA announced […]
NASA’s InSight mission is winding down — a look back at the Mars lander’s many accomplishments by Stefanie Waldek originally published on TechCrunch
NASA’s InSight lander says goodbye from Mars
This is likely the final photo that NASA’s Mars InSight lander will ever send back to Earth. The robot has been snapping pics and gathering data about the Martian environment since landing on the planet in November 2018 — and it’s been steadily accumulating dust on its solar panels that entire time. As NASA predicted earlier this year, the layer of debris has finally become too thick for the solar panels to operate. The InSight Twitter account officially said goodbye on December 19th with a final image from the surface of Mars.
“My power’s really low, so this may be the last image I can send,” the tweet reads. “Don’t worry about me though: my time here has been both productive and serene. If I can keep talking to my mission team, I will – but I’ll be signing off here soon. Thanks for staying with me.”
You’re welcome, metal astronaut.
My power’s really low, so this may be the last image I can send. Don’t worry about me though: my time here has been both productive and serene. If I can keep talking to my mission team, I will – but I’ll be signing off here soon. Thanks for staying with me. pic.twitter.com/wkYKww15kQ
— NASA InSight (@NASAInSight) December 19, 2022
InSight touched down on Mars on November 26th, 2018. It set up a seismometer on the Martian surface and collected data about marsquakes, which helped NASA scientists compile a clearer picture of the planet’s interior structure. Over the past four years, InSight provided data on more than 500 quakes and at least one meteoroid impact. From these reports, NASA researchers concluded Mars’ core is about half the size of Earth’s and likely composed of lighter elements than previously thought.
NASA announced in May 2022 that InSight would likely go dark by the end of the summer, due to the dust settling on the lander’s solar panels. InSight had recently celebrated its fourth anniversary on Mars when it stopped communicating with NASA. In a blog update on December 19th, the agency said the following:
“On Dec. 18, 2022, NASA’s InSight did not respond to communications from Earth. The lander’s power has been declining for months, as expected, and it’s assumed InSight may have reached its end of operations. It’s unknown what prompted the change in its energy; the last time the mission contacted the spacecraft was on Dec. 15, 2022. The mission will continue to try and contact InSight.”
SFI’s Insight and Xperi look to improve audio in streaming services
The research will explore the factors that can impact the streaming experience, while creating new tech to quantify how people perceive audio and speech quality.
Read more: SFI’s Insight and Xperi look to improve audio in streaming services
Sugar Diet – An Insight into the Sugar Detoxification
Sugar Diet – An Insight into the Sugar Detoxification Blog – HealthifyMe Blog – HealthifyMe – The definitive guide to weight loss, fitness and living a healthier life.
Want to lose weight and stay at bay from any slightest chances of diabetes? Well, then, a sugar diet will be your best friend. Many nutritionists stress people to lessen or, better, totally avoid sugar in their daily food consumption. Also, as per a study, sugar, when consumed in more than the necessary quantity, can […]
The post Sugar Diet – An Insight into the Sugar Detoxification appeared first on Blog – HealthifyMe.
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NASA’s Mars InSight Lander Reaching the End After Years of Killing It
The NASA Mars InSight Lander is one of those figures that does more by 9 a.m. than most do all week, and has crammed numerous discoveries into its four-year lifespan, far outpacing its initial expiration date of two Earth years.
Read This Article on How-To Geek ›
NASA’s InSight lander detected a meteoroid impact on Mars
NASA’s InSight lander may have had its last hurrah. Researchers have learned that a marsquake the lander detected in Mars’ Amazonis Planitia region on December 24th, 2021 was actually a meteoroid impact — the first time any mission has witnessed a crater forming on the planet. Scientists found out when they looked at before-and-after pictures from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) revealing a 492-foot gash in the landscape.
The meteoroid is believed to have been somewhere between 16 and 39 feet long. It would have burned up in Earth’s skies, but it was large enough to survive Mars’ extra-thin atmosphere. The impact was violent, digging a hole 70 feet deep and tossing debris as far as 23 miles away from the crater. It also exposed subsurface ice that hasn’t been seen so close to the martian equator before now. A sound adaptation of Insight’s data (below) shows just how “loud” the event was compared to Mars’ regular activity.
It took some time to confirm the event. A Malin Space Science Systems team used two of the MRO’s cameras (the black-and-white Context Camera and the Mars Color Imager) to spot the crater in February. Pictures from the color camera helped narrow down the impact to a 24-hour window.
Separately, a group has suggested that 20 of InSight’s roughly 1,300 detected marsquakes may be signs of magma. As Gizmodoexplains, the quakes’ spectral signature hints at a comparatively soft crust in Mars’ Cerberus Fossae region. Combined with dark dust, this hints that volcanic activity might have occurred on the planet within the past 50,000 years.
The discovery could help the scientific community understand Mars’ geologic timeline by defining the rate of craters appearing on the planet. It might also prove crucial to Mars colonists and explorers who may need the underground ice for sustenance and rocket fuel. Human visitors could carry fewer supplies, or extend their stays.
There’s a bittersweetness to this news. NASA previously warned that InSight couldn’t last much longer, and now expects the lander to shut down in six weeks as accumulating dust limits the effectiveness of its solar panels. That’s better than the end-of-summer cutoff the agency predicted this spring, but it could leave the meteorite detection as InSight’s last major accomplishment.