The Mars InSight lander has been silent for two and a half years. Yet the craft is still teaching us about the Red Planet. In particular, it’s revealing more about what killed it: dust and the fickle Martian winds.
InSight landed in late 2018 and operated for four years. It listened for marsquakes, and monitored the weather. It even recorded the soft sigh of the winds.
The wind lofts the dust that coats much of Mars high into the sky. The dust then settles back to the surface.
That “settling” was a problem for InSight. The lander was powered by the Sun. But as dust fell on its solar panels, they generated less and less energy. Scientists hoped the wind would clear the dust away, but it didn’t. So by late 2022, with its solar panels coated with dust, InSight fell silent.
Scientists still keep an eye on the craft through images from a Mars orbiter. The pictures show that dust has completely covered the solar panels, giving them the same reddish orange appearance as the surrounding landscape. And the area cleared away by the lander’s rocket blast has filled in with dust as well. That tells scientists more about the planet’s winds and dust – the “killers” of Mars InSight.
Mars stands close to the lower right of the Moon at nightfall. Its dust gives the planet an orange tint. Pollux and Castor – the twins of Gemini – line up farther to the right of the Moon.
Script by Damond Benningfield