NASA's InSight probe to Mars will study Red Planet's interior
- 5 years ago
2018 also marked another huge step forward for humankind as we delve deeper into the darkest reaches of space.
In one of NASA's most remarkable achievements yet,... the agency's InSight spacecraft landed on Mars in late November.
Park Ji-won reports.
After cruising some 550 million kilometers from Earth,... Nasa's InSight spacecraft landed on Mars on November 26th, 2018.
It was a voyage of more than six months... since its launch in California on May 5th.
But it was only after a nail-biting seven minutes,... as the spacecraft entered the Martian atmosphere,... that scientists and engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory were able to confirm that their probe had landed on the surface.
And then they erupted into cheers and applause.
"The whole room went crazy. My inner-four year old came out, but it wasn't out 'bad.' Some of the people on the team made a time-out area for me, just in case. I didn't have to use it. But it was an incredible, incredible experience. And it was amazing."
Minutes after the landing, the lander started sending back pictures of the Red Planet.
"That first image from the Viking lander, that bright, red image. You know we had seen all these black and white images from the moon, and they were amazing. But there was this bright red image from Mars, the first image from another planet and now I'm looking at this image from Insight, and it's just like a full circle, you know a whole career working towards understanding Mars bettter."
The name "InSight" stands for "Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport,"... which encompasses the lander's two-year mission.
Insight aims to measure the size of Mars' core and to explore interior layers of the planet, which formed 4-point-five billion years ago along with Earth.
Specifically, NASA hopes to look at seismic activity on Mars -- how often it experiences quakes,... how big they are and for what reasons,.. so it can undertand the planet inside and out.
InSight landed near the planet's equator,... and is about 600 kilometers away from where the Mars rover Curiosity landed back in 2012.
NASA's long-term goal on Mars is to send a manned mission there by the 2030s or 2040s.
Park Ji-won, Arirang News.
In one of NASA's most remarkable achievements yet,... the agency's InSight spacecraft landed on Mars in late November.
Park Ji-won reports.
After cruising some 550 million kilometers from Earth,... Nasa's InSight spacecraft landed on Mars on November 26th, 2018.
It was a voyage of more than six months... since its launch in California on May 5th.
But it was only after a nail-biting seven minutes,... as the spacecraft entered the Martian atmosphere,... that scientists and engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory were able to confirm that their probe had landed on the surface.
And then they erupted into cheers and applause.
"The whole room went crazy. My inner-four year old came out, but it wasn't out 'bad.' Some of the people on the team made a time-out area for me, just in case. I didn't have to use it. But it was an incredible, incredible experience. And it was amazing."
Minutes after the landing, the lander started sending back pictures of the Red Planet.
"That first image from the Viking lander, that bright, red image. You know we had seen all these black and white images from the moon, and they were amazing. But there was this bright red image from Mars, the first image from another planet and now I'm looking at this image from Insight, and it's just like a full circle, you know a whole career working towards understanding Mars bettter."
The name "InSight" stands for "Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport,"... which encompasses the lander's two-year mission.
Insight aims to measure the size of Mars' core and to explore interior layers of the planet, which formed 4-point-five billion years ago along with Earth.
Specifically, NASA hopes to look at seismic activity on Mars -- how often it experiences quakes,... how big they are and for what reasons,.. so it can undertand the planet inside and out.
InSight landed near the planet's equator,... and is about 600 kilometers away from where the Mars rover Curiosity landed back in 2012.
NASA's long-term goal on Mars is to send a manned mission there by the 2030s or 2040s.
Park Ji-won, Arirang News.