“It should be over.” The InSight probe sent one last photo from Mars and stopped

The lander’s performance had been declining for months, and NASA said earlier this week that InSight was unresponsive to communications from Earth. “The last time the mission docked with the spacecraft was December 15, 2022,” the US space agency reported, according to The Independent.

“It is believed that InSight may have reached its end of life,” NASA added.

On Monday, the rover’s official Twitter account also posted an image of the planet’s rocky surface in what may be its last post.

However, this scanner certainly didn’t shut down by accident or unexpectedly, the loss of contact with it this December was already highly anticipated. Why?

“Unlike the Perseverance or Curiosity rovers, the InSight module did not obtain energy for its operation from the decay of radioactive isotopes, but with the use of two photovoltaic panels with a total area of ​​4.2 m²”, underlined the national expert on Mars , geologist Petr Brož of the Institute of Geophysics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic .

“But Mars is a dusty world. Gradually, red Martian dust began to settle on the surface of the panels (but also everywhere on the spacecraft). As a result, less sunlight fell on the panels, and with it the amount of electricity obtained began to decrease. It was so clear that it wouldn’t be long before the probe would be unable to generate enough electricity to survive: its internal heating would be unable to keep the delicate electronics warm. Especially at a time when the Martian winter comes to the landing site,” Brož summed up.

However, according to him, the science team of the mission tried to extend the life of the probe with “pieces of dog” in an attempt to get dust from the panels: make them vibrate and sprinkle the Martian surface, the so-called regolith, on the body of the probe (with the aid of a robotic shovel) so that the larger grains that jump absorb the dust from the panels. An example of such activity is in the opening video of the article.

“But nothing completely cleaned the panels, not even gusts of wind,” noted Brož, who posted the end of the InSight mission and its scientific results on his Twitter. a whole series of posts.

Although, according to him, the following weeks will definitely confirm whether we have really permanently lost contact with the device, but the chances of reviving the probe are very slim.

A significant scientific success of the spacecraft and its instruments is the detection of “Marsquakes” there. “But the presence of Martian earthquakes and their strength have shown us that Mars is still a geologically active world. A place where tension builds up in its cortex, which can then be released. Also a place where capable asteroids occasionally land to cause a significant shock,” continued the geologist, author of the children’s educational publication Vesmírníček or We fall asleep with science.

Since landing on Elysium Planitia in the planet’s northern hemisphere in November 2018, InSight instruments have recorded about 1,500 Martian earthquakes, including several caused by small impacts from space bodies.

“Most of the tremors were very weak – if they happened on Earth, we wouldn’t even feel them – we only know about their presence because the seismometer is extremely sensitive,” Brož explained.

Only about 100 earthquakes were greater than magnitude 2, he said, and fewer than 10 were greater than magnitude 3. The two strongest earthquakes recorded were magnitudes 5 and 4.2. “To give you an idea, there hasn’t been a stronger earthquake of magnitude 5 in western Bohemia in the last 150 years,” she compared.

Furthermore, the measurements showed that our neighboring planet is shaking quite strangely. “After a long wait for the first recorded tremor, Mars literally shook and the frequency of the tremors is steadily increasing. In the first half of 2020 it shook so much that the seismometer was able to detect a new Martian earthquake practically every day And as suddenly as the tremors started, they ended just as suddenly,” said the scientist.

This strange behavior is explained by the scientific community as the reason for the sudden silence of the tremors of Mars are the winds, the frequency of which changes depending on the time of year. The moving air masses are able to shake the surface and thus create a noise that the seismometer detects and which hides weak Martian tremors.

At the same time, InSight revealed the thickness of the Martian crust at the landing site and that it is made up of several layers. It is either 25 or 40 km thick, depending on the seismic wave propagation model used.

Furthermore, Mars’ large core suggests that, in addition to iron and sulfur, it must also contain lighter elements, such as oxygen.

The pin also reminded of a failure of this planetary probe. She failed to “hammer beneath the surface of the mole.”

“The Mole was a German temperature probe whose job was to sink 2-3 meters below the surface and measure the amount of heat escaping from the planet’s interior. It was supposed to detect heat flux. Thanks to this, we should have known if the red planet is still hot enough to allow for volcanic activity,” Brož said.

The latest discovery of the InSight spacecraft will likely remain the discovery of the largest new crater on Mars created by a meteorite impact. Furthermore, the impact of the cosmic body caused the ejection of chunks of ice the size of boulders.