Astronomy – October 2019

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mission is already making important

meteorological discoveries about the

current martian climate. And with the

successful deployments of all the main

instruments except for the mole, the

stage is now set for the mission to make

historical geophysical discoveries as well.

Now, it’s time for Mars to cooperate.

With the first marsquake now in the

books, how many more will be found?

And will these turn out to be the results

of nearby impacts, some deep, internal

churning of a still-active mantle or core,

or both? Is Mars as dead as the Moon, or

does it still experience some internal

activity? Over the coming years, scien-

tists expect to record many seismic

events. What will they reveal about

the planet’s internal structure, and what

can scientists glean from this about the

timescale over which the planet’s once-

abundant volcanism and strong magnetic

field waned?

And ultimately, what other new

insights will come from InSight? Stay

tuned — the latest round of excitement

and discovery on the Red Planet has only

just begun.

Jim Bell is a professor in Arizona State

University’s School of Earth and Space

Exploration, and president of The Planetary

Society. He throws left, bats right, and has

been heavily involved in the surface and

orbital robotic exploration of Mars since the

mid-1990s.

ABOVE: A thin coating of dust covered InSight when
it took its second selfie a few months after the first
(see page 19). This mosaic combines 14 images
taken March 15 and April 11. At this stage, the lander
has removed the seismometer and heat probe from
its deck and placed them on the surface.

RIGHT: NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
regularly monitors the area where InSight landed
so it can look for new impact craters or landslides
that might trigger the surface probe’s seismometer.
InSight appears as a bluish dot near the top of this
image. NASA/JPL/UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

InSight’s Instrument Deployment Camera captured
the rising Sun on April 24 (sol 145). The camera took
this image around 5:30 A.M. local Mars time.

InSight also caught sunset on sol 145, when earthly

calendars had flipped to April 25. The same camera

took this image around 6:30 P.M. local Mars time.