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NASA's InSight Mars Lander, which acquired this image in November 2018, has had its mission extended until the end of the year, but dust storms have left some portion of its solar panels covered and scientists are concerned it can't generate enough power to keep going.
"On Mars, quakes are caused by the contraction of the crust due to cooling and vertical motions from thermal uplift or sinking," Bruce Banerdt, principal investigator for the InSight mission and a principal scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told UPI.
Meaning that, like baking a cake or muffins, the top of the planet's crust expands and contracts as the middle heats up -- or cooks, in the case of food -- and it expands upwards, pushing against the top. This upward expansion causes cracks in the top of a cake, and has a similar effect on the planetary crust of Mars.
InSight has detected more than 1,300 Marsquakes, and scientists think underlying magma reserves on the planet cause the quakes, even though volcanoes aren't actively erupting on the planet's surface.
Previous Marsquakes were deeper below the planet's crust, and only detected with InSight's suite of instruments, but the May 4 quake could have been felt if a person were standing on the surface, scientists said.
Registering as a magnitude 5, Banerdt said that while it's weak in comparison to many quakes felt on Earth, it reached an intensity for which scientists have been looking.
"This quake is sure to provide us with a view inside the planet we've never seen before," he said.
The finding is a win for the ailing lander, which in January sat through a massive dust storm that covered its solar panels, making it more difficult for to charge up its batteries.
Another similar massive dust storm ended the Opportunity rover's extended mission in 2018, after the rover could no longer power itself up.
To help extend its life expectancy, the team put InSight into safe mode for a few months.
Eventually the craft was able to return to full power and is proving its worth by detecting this latest monster quake. Dust continues to accumulate on the lander's solar panels, however, and unless there's a way to shake it off, eventually it will succumb to the elements, NASA has said.
Engineers predict that could happen sometime this year, possibly before the end of its current mission.
Photo by NASA/UPI | License Photo
ORLANDO, Fla., May 17 (UPI) -- Despite being ravaged by dust storms and struggling to stay powered, NASA's InSight Mars lander has managed to keep making scientific findings -- including its recent detection of a powerful Marsquake.
The quake, measured by the lander on May 4, was the most intense detected so far by InSight and shook the red planet for more than 9 hours.
The craft has met most goals from its two-year mission -- a mission extended through the end of this year -- but NASA officials say they are concerned if it can keep going because of dust accumulation on its solar panels.
NASA on Tuesday will offer an update on InSight's power situation -- whether it is generating enough power to continue its mission -- and whether anything can be done to improve it, in addition to the lander's overall long-term fate.
After landing on Mars in 2018, InSight was tasked with probing the planet's interior to learn more about how it works.
While Earthquakes are caused by plate tectonics -- when the plates that make up Earth's crust shift and collide -- Mars doesn't have a crust made up of plates, so planet's tremblers are caused by slightly different phenomena.
ORLANDO, Fla., May 17 (UPI) -- Despite being ravaged by dust storms and struggling to stay powered, NASA's InSight Mars lander has managed to keep making scientific findings -- including its recent detection of a powerful Marsquake.
The quake, measured by the lander on May 4, was the most intense detected so far by InSight and shook the red planet for more than 9 hours.
The craft has met most goals from its two-year mission -- a mission extended through the end of this year -- but NASA officials say they are concerned if it can keep going because of dust accumulation on its solar panels.
NASA on Tuesday will offer an update on InSight's power situation -- whether it is generating enough power to continue its mission -- and whether anything can be done to improve it, in addition to the lander's overall long-term fate.
After landing on Mars in 2018, InSight was tasked with probing the planet's interior to learn more about how it works.
While Earthquakes are caused by plate tectonics -- when the plates that make up Earth's crust shift and collide -- Mars doesn't have a crust made up of plates, so planet's tremblers are caused by slightly different phenomena.
"On Mars, quakes are caused by the contraction of the crust due to cooling and vertical motions from thermal uplift or sinking," Bruce Banerdt, principal investigator for the InSight mission and a principal scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told UPI.
Meaning that, like baking a cake or muffins, the top of the planet's crust expands and contracts as the middle heats up -- or cooks, in the case of food -- and it expands upwards, pushing against the top. This upward expansion causes cracks in the top of a cake, and has a similar effect on the planetary crust of Mars.
InSight has detected more than 1,300 Marsquakes, and scientists think underlying magma reserves on the planet cause the quakes, even though volcanoes aren't actively erupting on the planet's surface.
Previous Marsquakes were deeper below the planet's crust, and only detected with InSight's suite of instruments, but the May 4 quake could have been felt if a person were standing on the surface, scientists said.
Registering as a magnitude 5, Banerdt said that while it's weak in comparison to many quakes felt on Earth, it reached an intensity for which scientists have been looking.
"This quake is sure to provide us with a view inside the planet we've never seen before," he said.
The finding is a win for the ailing lander, which in January sat through a massive dust storm that covered its solar panels, making it more difficult for to charge up its batteries.
Another similar massive dust storm ended the Opportunity rover's extended mission in 2018, after the rover could no longer power itself up.
To help extend its life expectancy, the team put InSight into safe mode for a few months.
Eventually the craft was able to return to full power and is proving its worth by detecting this latest monster quake. Dust continues to accumulate on the lander's solar panels, however, and unless there's a way to shake it off, eventually it will succumb to the elements, NASA has said.
Engineers predict that could happen sometime this year, possibly before the end of its current mission.
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