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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.