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By NASA
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
It’s a new year on Mars, and while New Year’s means winter in Earth’s northern hemisphere, it’s the start of spring in the same region of the Red Planet. And that means ice is thawing, leading to all sorts of interesting things. JPL research scientist Serina Diniega explains. NASA/JPL-Caltech Instead of a winter wonderland, the Red Planet’s northern hemisphere goes through an active — even explosive — spring thaw.
While New Year’s Eve is around the corner here on Earth, Mars scientists are ahead of the game: The Red Planet completed a trip around the Sun on Nov. 12, 2024, prompting a few researchers to raise a toast.
But the Martian year, which is 687 Earth days, ends in a very different way in the planet’s northern hemisphere than it does in Earth’s northern hemisphere: While winter’s kicking in here, spring is starting there. That means temperatures are rising and ice is thinning, leading to frost avalanches crashing down cliffsides, carbon dioxide gas exploding from the ground, and powerful winds helping reshape the north pole.
“Springtime on Earth has lots of trickling as water ice gradually melts. But on Mars, everything happens with a bang,” said Serina Diniega, who studies planetary surfaces at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
Mars’ wispy atmosphere doesn’t allow liquids to pool on the surface, like on Earth. Instead of melting, ice sublimates, turning directly into a gas. The sudden transition in spring means a lot of violent changes as both water ice and carbon dioxide ice — dry ice, which is much more plentiful on Mars than frozen water — weaken and break.
“You get lots of cracks and explosions instead of melting,” Diniega said. “I imagine it gets really noisy.”
Using the cameras and other sensors aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which launched in 2005, scientists study all this activity to improve their understanding of the forces shaping the dynamic Martian surface. Here’s some of what they track.
Frost Avalanches
In 2015, MRO’s High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera captured a 66-foot-wide (20-meter-wide) chunk of carbon dioxide frost in freefall. Chance observations like this are reminders of just how different Mars is from Earth, Diniega said, especially in springtime, when these surface changes are most noticeable.
Martian spring involves lots of cracking ice, which led to this 66-foot-wide (20-meter-wide) chunk of carbon dioxide frost captured in freefall by the HiRISE camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2015NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona “We’re lucky we’ve had a spacecraft like MRO observing Mars for as long as it has,” Diniega said. “Watching for almost 20 years has let us catch dramatic moments like these avalanches.”
Gas Geysers
Diniega has relied on HiRISE to study another quirk of Martian springtime: gas geysers that blast out of the surface, throwing out dark fans of sand and dust. These explosive jets form due to energetic sublimation of carbon dioxide ice. As sunlight shines through the ice, its bottom layers turn to gas, building pressure until it bursts into the air, creating those dark fans of material.
As light shines through carbon dioxide ice on Mars, it heats up its bottom layers, which, rather than melting into a liquid, turn into gas. The buildup gas eventually results in explosive geysers that toss dark fans of debris on to the surface.light shines through carbon dioxide ice on Mars But to see the best examples of the newest fans, researchers will have to wait until December 2025, when spring starts in the southern hemisphere. There, the fans are bigger and more clearly defined.
Spiders
Another difference between ice-related action in the two hemispheres: Once all the ice around some northern geysers has sublimated in summer, what’s left behind in the dirt are scour marks that, from space, look like giant spider legs. Researchers recently re-created this process in a JPL lab.
Sometimes, after carbon dioxide geysers have erupted from ice-covered areas on Mars, they leave scour marks on the surface. When the ice is all gone by summer, these long scour marks look like the legs of giant spiders.NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona Powerful Winds
For Isaac Smith of Toronto’s York University, one of the most fascinating subjects in springtime is the Texas-size ice cap at Mars’ north pole. Etched into the icy dome are swirling troughs, revealing traces of the red surface below. The effect is like a swirl of milk in a café latte.
“These things are enormous,” Smith said, noting that some are a long as California. “You can find similar troughs in Antarctica but nothing at this scale.”
As temperatures rise, powerful winds kick up that carve deep troughs into the ice cap of Mars’ north pole. Some of these troughs are as long as California, and give the Martian north pole its trademark swirls. This image was captured by NASA’s now-inactive Mars Global Surveyor.NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS Fast, warm wind has carved the spiral shapes over eons, and the troughs act as channels for springtime wind gusts that become more powerful as ice at the north pole starts to thaw. Just like the Santa Ana winds in Southern California or the Chinook winds in the Rocky Mountains, these gusts pick up speed and temperature as they ride down the troughs — what’s called an adiabatic process.
Wandering Dunes
The winds that carve the north pole’s troughs also reshape Mars’ sand dunes, causing sand to pile up on one side while removing sand from the other side. Over time, the process causes dunes to migrate, just as it does with dunes on Earth.
This past September, Smith coauthored a paper detailing how carbon dioxide frost settles on top of polar sand dunes during winter, freezing them in place. When the frost all thaws away in the spring, the dunes begin migrating again.
Surrounded by frost, these Martian dunes in Mars’ northern hemisphere were captured from above by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter using its HiRISE camera on Sept. 8, 2022. NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona Each northern spring is a little different, with variations leading to ice sublimating faster or slower, controlling the pace of all these phenomena on the surface. And these strange phenomena are just part of the seasonal changes on Mars: the southern hemisphere has its own unique activity.
More About MRO
The University of Arizona, in Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., in Boulder, Colorado. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
For more information, visit:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-reconnaissance-orbiter
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Andrew Good
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
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andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
NASA Headquarters, Washington
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karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Dec 20, 2024 Related Terms
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Mars: Perseverance (Mars 2020) Perseverance Home Mission Overview Rover Components Mars Rock Samples Where is Perseverance? Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Mission Updates Science Overview Objectives Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Perseverance Raw Images Images Videos Audio More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions The Solar System The Sun Mercury Venus Earth The Moon Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto & Dwarf Planets Asteroids, Comets & Meteors The Kuiper Belt The Oort Cloud 3 min read
Perseverance Blasts Past the Top of Jezero Crater Rim
This SuperCam Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) mosaic shows part of the target “Duran,” observed on Sol 1357 near the top of Jezero crater’s rim. It was processed using a color-enhancing Gaussian stretch algorithm. NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/IRAP. I have always loved the mountains. Growing up on the flat plains of Midwestern USA, every summer I looked forward to spending a few days on alpine trails while on vacation. Climbing upward from the trailhead, the views changed constantly. After climbing a short distance, the best views were often had by looking back down on where we had started. As we climbed higher, views of the valleys below eventually became shrouded in haze. Near the top we got our last views of the region behind us; then it disappeared from view as we hiked over the pass and started down the other side. Approaching the summit held a special reward, as the regions beyond the pass slowly revealed themselves. Frequent stops to catch our breath during our ascent were used to check the map to identify the new peaks and other features that came into view. Sometimes the pass was an exciting gateway to a whole new area to explore.
This ever-changing landscape has been our constant companion over the last five months as Perseverance first climbed out of Neretva Vallis, then past “Dox Castle,” and “Pico Turquino.” We stopped at “Faraway Rock” on Sol 1282 to get a panorama of the crater floor. More recently, we could see many more peaks of the crater rim. As Perseverance crested the summit of “Lookout Hill,” half a mile (800 meters) above the traverse’s lowest point, we got our first views beyond the crater rim, out into the great unknown expanse of Mars’ Nili Planum, including the upper reaches of Neretva Vallis and the locations of two other candidate landing sites that were once considered for Perseverance. As the rover crested the summit, Mastcam-Z took a large panoramic mosaic, and team members are excitedly poring over the images, looking at all the new features. With Perseverance’s powerful cameras we can analyze small geological features such as boulders, fluvial bars, and dunes more than 5 miles (8 kilometers) distant, and major features like mountains up to 35 miles (60 kilometers) away. One of our team members excitedly exclaimed, “This is an epic moment in Mars exploration!”
While Curiosity has been climbing “Mount Sharp” for 10 years, and Spirit and Opportunity explored several smaller craters, no extraterrestrial rover has driven out of such a huge crater as Jezero to see a whole new “continent” ahead. We are particularly excited because it is potentially some of the most ancient surface on the Red Planet. Let’s go explore it!
Perseverance is now in Gros Morne quad, named for a beautiful Canadian national park in Newfoundland, and we will be naming our targets using locations and features in the national park. For the drive ahead, described in a video in a recent press release, our next destination is on the lower western edge of the Jezero crater rim at a region named “Witch Hazel Hill.”
Perseverance made more than 250 meters of progress over the weekend (about 820 feet) and is already at the upper part of Witch Hazel Hill, a location called “South Arm.” Much of the climb up the crater rim was on sandy material without many rocks to analyze. Witch Hazel Hill appears to have much more exposed rock, and the science team is excited about the opportunity for better views and analyses of the geology directly beneath our wheels.
Written by Roger C. Wiens, Principal Investigator of the SuperCam instrument, Purdue University
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Last Updated Dec 19, 2024 Related Terms
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By NASA
As 1969, an historic year that saw not just one but two successful human lunar landings, drew to a close, NASA continued preparations for its planned third Moon landing mission, Apollo 13, then scheduled for launch on March 12, 1970. The Apollo 13 prime crew of Commander James A. Lovell, Command Module Pilot (CMP) Thomas K. “Ken” Mattingly, and Lunar Module Pilot (LMP) Fred W. Haise, and their backups John W. Young, John L. “Jack” Swigert, and Charles M. Duke, continued intensive training for the mission. NASA announced the selection of the Fra Mauro region of the Moon as the prime landing site for Apollo 13, favored by geologists because it forms an extensive geologic unit around Mare Imbrium, the largest lava plain on the Moon. The Apollo 13 Saturn V rolled out to its launch pad.
Apollo 11
The Apollo 11 astronauts meet Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, left, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. Image courtesy of The Canadian Press. The Apollo 11 astronauts meet with Québec premier ministre Jean Lesage in Montréal. Image courtesy of Archives de la Ville de Montreal. Apollo 11 astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrinhad returned from their Giantstep Presidential goodwill tour on Nov. 5, 1969. Due to scheduling conflicts, a visit to Canada could not be included in the same time frame as the rest of the tour, so the astronauts made a special trip to Ottawa and Montreal on Dec. 2 and 3, meeting with local officials.
Apollo 11 astronaut Neil A. Armstrong, left, and comedian Bob Hope perform for the troops in Korat, Thailand. Armstrong, in blue flight suit, shakes hands with servicemen in Long Binh, South Vietnam. Armstrong, left, and Hope entertain the crowd in Cu Chi, South Vietnam. Armstrong joined famed comedian Bob Hope’s USO Christmas tour in December 1969. He participated in several shows at venues in South Vietnam, Thailand, and Guam, kidding around with Hope and answering questions from the assembled service members. He received standing ovations and spent much time shaking hands with the troops. The USO troupe also visited the hospital ship U.S.S. Sanctuary (AH-17) stationed in the South China Sea.
Apollo 12
For the first time in nearly four weeks, on Dec. 10, Apollo 12 astronauts Charles “Pete” Conrad, Richard F. Gordon, and Alan L. Bean stepped out into sunshine and breathed unfiltered air. Since their launch on Nov. 14, 1969, the trio had traveled inside their spacecraft for 10 days on their mission to the Moon and back, wore respirators during their recovery in the Pacific Ocean, stayed in the Mobile Quarantine Facility during the trip from the prime recovery ship U.S.S. Hornet back to Houston, and lived in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory (LRL) at the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC), now NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Like the Apollo 11 crew before them, Conrad, Gordon, and Bean exhibited no symptoms of any infections with lunar microorganisms and managers declared them fit to be released from quarantine. MSC Director Robert L. Gilruth, other managers, and a crowd of well-wishers greeted Conrad, Gordon, and Bean.
Director of the Manned Spacecraft Center, now NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Robert R. Gilruth and others greet Apollo 12 astronaut Charles “Pete” Conrad as he emerges from his postflight quarantine. Director of the Manned Spacecraft Center, now NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Robert R. Gilruth and others greet Apollo 12 astronaut Richard F. Gordon as he emerges from his postflight quarantine. Director of the Manned Spacecraft Center, now NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Robert R. Gilruth and others greet Apollo 12 astronaut Alan L. Bean as he emerges from his postflight quarantine. Addressing the crowd gathered outside the LRL, Conrad commented that “the LRL was really quite pleasant,” but all three were glad to be breathing non man-made air! While the men went home to their families for a short rest, work inside the LRL continued. Scientists began examining the first of the 75 pounds of rocks returned by the astronauts as well as the camera and other hardware they removed from Surveyor 3 for effects of 31 months exposed to the harsh lunar environment. Preliminary analysis of the TV camera that failed early during their first spacewalk on the lunar surface indicated that the failure was due to partial burnout of the Videocon tube, likely caused by the crew accidentally pointing the camera toward the Sun. Other scientists busied themselves with analyzing the data returning from the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Package (ALSEP) instruments Conrad and Bean deployed on the lunar surface. Mission planners examining the photographs taken from lunar orbit of the Fra Mauro area were confident that the next mission, Apollo 13, would be able to make a safe landing in that geologically interesting site, the first attempt to land in the lunar highlands.
After taking their first steps in the sunshine, Apollo 12 astronauts Charles “Pete” Conrad, left, Alan L. Bean, and Richard F. Gordon address a large group of well-wishers outside the Lunar Receiving Laboratory. Bean, left, Gordon, and Conrad during their postflight press conference. Two days after leaving the LRL, Conrad, Gordon, and Bean held their postflight press conference in the MSC auditorium. Addressing the assembled reporters, the astronauts first introduced their wives as their “number one support team,” then provided a film and photo summary of their mission, and answered numerous questions. Among other things, the astronauts praised the spacesuits they wore during the Moon walks, indicating they worked very well and, looking ahead, saw no impediments to longer excursions on future missions. Their only concern centered around the ever-present lunar dust that clung to their suits, raising that as a potential issue for future lunar explorers.
Director of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida Kurt H. Debus, right, presents Apollo 12 astronauts Charles “Pete” Conrad, left, Richard F. Gordon, and Alan L. Bean with photos of their launch. White House of the Apollo 12 astronauts and their wives with President Richard M. Nixon, First Lady Pat Nixon, and their daughter Tricia Nixon. Conrad, Gordon, and Bean returned to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida on Dec. 17, where their mission began more than a month earlier and nearly ended prematurely when lightning twice struck their Saturn V rocket. KSC Director Kurt H. Debus presented each astronaut with a framed photograph of their launch in front of 8,000 workers assembled in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). Of their nearly ill-fated liftoff Conrad expressed his signature confidence, “Had we to do it again, I would launch exactly under the same conditions.” Guenter Wendt and his pad closeout team had collected a piece of grounding rod from the umbilical tower, cut it into three short pieces, mounted them with the inscription “In fond memory of the electrifying launch of Apollo 12,” and presented them to the astronauts. Three days later, President Richard M. Nixon and First Lady Pat Nixon welcomed Conrad, Gordon, and Bean and their wives Jane, Barbara, and Sue, respectively, to a dinner at the White House. After dinner, they watched a film about the Apollo 12 mission as well as the recently released motion picture Marooned about three astronauts stranded in space. President Nixon requested that the astronauts pay a visit to former President Lyndon B. Johnson, who for many years championed America’s space program, and brief him on their mission, which they did in January 1970.
The Alan Bean Day parade in Fort Worth. Apollo 12 astronaut Bean and his family deluged by shredded office paper during the parade in his honor in Fort Worth. Image credits: courtesy Fort Worth Star Telegram. On Dec. 22, the city of Fort Worth, Texas, honored native son Bean, with Conrad, Gordon, and their families joining him for the Alan Bean Day festivities. An estimated 150,000 people lined the streets of the city to welcome Bean and his crewmates, dumping a blizzard of ticker tape and shredded office paper on the astronauts and their families during the parade. City workers cleared an estimated 60 tons of paper from the streets after the event.
Apollo 13
The planned Apollo 13 landing site in the Fra Mauro region, in relation to the Apollo 11 and 12 landing sites. Workers place the Spacecraft Lunar Module Adapter over the Apollo 13 Lunar Module. On Dec. 10, 1969, NASA announced the selection of the Fra Mauro region of the Moon as the prime landing site for Apollo 13, located about 110 miles east of the Apollo 12 touchdown point. Geologists favored the Fra Mauro area for exploration because it forms an extensive geologic unit around Mare Imbrium, the largest lava plain on the Moon. Unlike the Apollo 11 and 12 sites located in the flat lunar maria, Fra Mauro rests in the relatively more rugged lunar highlands. The precision landing by the Apollo 12 crew and their extensive orbital photography of the Fra Mauro region gave NASA confidence to attempt a landing at Fra Mauro. Workers in KSC’s VAB had stacked the three stages of Apollo 13’s Saturn V in June and July 1969. On Dec. 10, they topped the rocket with the Apollo 13 spacecraft, comprising the Command and Service Modules (CSM) and the Lunar Module (LM) inside the Spacecraft LM Adapter. Five days later, the Saturn V exited the VAB and made the 3.5-mile journey out to Launch Pad 39A to begin a series of tests to prepare it for the launch of the planned 10-day lunar mission. During their 33.5 hours on the Moon’s surface, Lovell and Haise planned to conduct two four-hour spacewalks to set up the ALSEP, a suite of five investigations designed to collect data about the lunar environment after the astronauts’ departure, and to conduct geologic explorations of the landing site. Mattingly planned to remain in the CSM, conducting geologic observations from lunar orbit including photographing potential future landing sites.
Apollo 13 astronaut James A. Lovell trains on the deployment of the S-band antenna. Apollo 13 astronaut Fred W. Haise examines one of the lunar surface instruments. During the first of the two spacewalks, Apollo 13 Moon walkers Lovell and Haise planned to deploy the five ALSEP experiments, comprising:
Charged Particle Lunar Environment Experiment (CPLEE) – flying for the first time, this experiment sought to measure the particle energies of protons and electrons reaching the lunar surface from the Sun. Lunar Atmosphere Detector (LAD) – this experiment used a Cold Cathode Ion Gauge (CCIG) to measure the pressure of the tenuous lunar atmosphere. Lunar Heat Flow Experiment (LHE) – designed to measure the steady-state heat flow from the Moon’s interior. Passive Seismic Experiment (PSE) – similar to the device left on the Moon during Apollo 12, consisted of a sensitive seismometer to record Moon quakes and other seismic activity. Lunar Dust Detector (LDD) – measured the amount of dust deposited on the lunar surface. A Central Station provided command and communications to the ALSEP experiments, while a Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator using heat from the radioactive decay of a Plutonium-238 sample provided uninterrupted power. Additionally, the astronauts planned to deploy and retrieve the Solar Wind Collector experiment to collect particles of the solar wind, as did the Apollo 11 and 12 crews before them. Apollo 13 astronauts James A. Lovell and Fred W. Haise during the geology field trip to lava fields on the Big Island of Hawaii. Apollo 13 astronauts James A. Lovell and Fred W. Haise during the geology field trip to lava fields on the Big Island of Hawaii. Apollo 13 astronauts James A. Lovell and Fred W. Haise during the geology field trip to lava fields on the Big Island of Hawaii. Apollo 13 astronauts Lovell, Haise, Young, and Duke participated in a geology training field trip between Dec. 17 and 20 on the Big Island of Hawaii. Geologist Patrick D. Crosland of the National Park Service in Hawaii provided the astronauts with a tour of recent volcanic eruption sites in the Kilauea area, with the thought that the Fra Mauro formation might be of volcanic origin. During several traverses in the Kilauea Volcano area, NASA geologists John W. Dietrich, Uel S. Clanton, and Gary E. Lofgren and US Geological Survey geologists Gordon A. “Gordie” Swann, M.H. “Tim” Hait, and Leon T. “Lee” Silver accompanied the astronauts. The training sessions honed the astronauts’ geology skills and refined procedures for collecting rock samples and for documentary photography.
Apollo 14
The Apollo 14 Command and Service Modules shortly after arriving in the Manned Spacecraft Operations Building (MSOB) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Apollo 14 Lunar Module ascent stage shortly after arriving in the MSOB. S69-62154 001 Preparations for the fourth Moon landing mission, Apollo 14, continued as well. At the time tentatively planned for launch in July 1970, mission planners considered the Littrow area on the eastern edge of the Mare Serenitatis, characterized by dark material possibly of volcanic origin, as a potential landing site. Apollo 14 astronauts Commander Alan B. Shepard, CMP Stuart A. Roosa, and LMP Edgar D. Mitchell and their backups Eugene A. Cernan, Ronald E. Evans, and Joe H. Engle had already begun training for their mission. At KSC’s Manned Spacecraft Operations Building (MSOB), the Apollo 14 CSM arrived from its manufacturer North American Rockwell in Downey, California, as did the two stages of the LM from the Grumman Aerospace and Engineering Company in Bethpage, New York, in November 1969. Engineers began tests of the spacecraft shortly after their arrival. The three stages of the Apollo 14 Saturn V were scheduled to arrive at KSC in January 1970.
To be continued …
News from around the world in December 1969:
December 2 – Boeing’s new 747 Jumbo Jet makes its first passenger flight, from Seattle to New York.
December 3 – George M. Low sworn in as NASA deputy administrator.
December 4 – A Boy Named Charlie Brown, the first feature film based on the Peanuts comic strip, is released to theaters for the first time.
December 7 – The animated Christmas special Frosty the Snowman, makes its television debut.
December 14 – The Jackson 5 make their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.
December 18 – The sixth James Bond film, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, held its world premiere in London, with George Lazenby as Agent 007.
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By European Space Agency
Step into the holidays with this picturesque ‘winter wonderland’ scene at the south pole of Mars, captured by ESA’s Mars Express.
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By NASA
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Seen at the center of this image, NASA’s retired InSight Mars lander was captured by the agency’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter using its High-Resolution Imagine Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on Oct. 23, 2024.NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona New images taken from space show how dust on and around InSight is changing over time — information that can help scientists learn more about the Red Planet.
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) caught a glimpse of the agency’s retired InSight lander recently, documenting the accumulation of dust on the spacecraft’s solar panels. In the new image taken Oct. 23 by MRO’s High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera, InSight’s solar panels have acquired the same reddish-brown hue as the rest of the planet.
After touching down in November 2018, the lander was the first to detect the Red Planet’s marsquakes, revealing details of the crust, mantle, and core in the process. Over the four years that the spacecraft collected science, engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which led the mission, used images from InSight’s cameras and MRO’s HiRISE to estimate how much dust was settling on the stationary lander’s solar panels, since dust affected its ability to generate power.
NASA retired InSight in December 2022, after the lander ran out of power and stopped communicating with Earth during its extended mission. But engineers continued listening for radio signals from the lander in case wind cleared enough dust from the spacecraft’s solar panels for its batteries to recharge. Having detected no changes over the past two years, NASA will stop listening for InSight at the end of this year.
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NASA’s InSight Mars lander acquires the same reddish-brown hue as the rest of the planet in a set of images from 2018 to 2024 that were captured by the agency’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter using its High-Resolution Imagine Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera.NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona Scientists requested the recent HiRISE image as a farewell to InSight, as well as to monitor how its landing site has changed over time.
“Even though we’re no longer hearing from InSight, it’s still teaching us about Mars,” said science team member Ingrid Daubar of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. “By monitoring how much dust collects on the surface — and how much gets vacuumed away by wind and dust devils — we learn more about the wind, dust cycle, and other processes that shape the planet.”
Dust Devils and Craters
Dust is a driving force across Mars, shaping both the atmosphere and landscape. Studying it helps scientists understand the planet and engineers prepare for future missions (solar-powered and otherwise), since dust can get into sensitive mechanical parts.
When InSight was still active, scientists matched MRO images of dust devil tracks winding across the landscape with data from the lander’s wind sensors, finding these whirling weather phenomena subside in the winter and pick up again in the summer.
The imagery also helped with the study of meteoroid impacts on the Martian surface. The more craters a region has, the older the surface there is. (This isn’t the case with Earth’s surface, which is constantly recycled as tectonic plates slide over one another.) The marks around these craters fade with time. Understanding how fast dust covers them helps to ascertain a crater’s age.
Another way to estimate how quickly craters fade has been studying the ring of blast marks left by InSight’s retrorocket thrusters during landing. Much more prominent in 2018, those dark marks are now returning to the red-brown color of the surrounding terrain.
HiRISE has captured many other spacecraft images, including those of NASA’s Perseverance and Curiosity rovers, which are still exploring Mars, as well as inactive missions, like the Spirit and Opportunity rovers and the Phoenix lander.
“It feels a little bittersweet to look at InSight now. It was a successful mission that produced lots of great science. Of course, it would have been nice if it kept going forever, but we knew that wouldn’t happen,” Daubar said.
More About MRO and InSight
The University of Arizona, in Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., in Boulder, Colorado. A division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, JPL manages the MRO project and managed InSight for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
The InSight mission was part of NASA’s Discovery Program, managed by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built the InSight spacecraft, including its cruise stage and lander, and supported spacecraft operations for the mission.
A number of European partners, including France’s Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), supported the InSight mission. CNES provided the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) instrument to NASA, with the principal investigator at IPGP (Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris). Significant contributions for SEIS came from IPGP; the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany; the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) in Switzerland; Imperial College London and Oxford University in the United Kingdom; and JPL. DLR provided the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) instrument, with significant contributions from the Space Research Center (CBK) of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Astronika in Poland. Spain’s Centro de Astrobiología (CAB) supplied the temperature and wind sensors.
For more about the missions:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/insight
science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-reconnaissance-orbiter
News Media Contacts
Andrew Good
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-2433
andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
2024-175
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Last Updated Dec 16, 2024 Related Terms
InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) Jet Propulsion Laboratory Mars Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) Radioisotope Power Systems (RPS) Explore More
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