InSight station in Elysium Planitia

InSight · 2018 CE – 2022 CE · Mars

InSight station in Elysium Planitia — InSight · 2018 CE – 2022 CE · Mars — Recorded expedition route · schematic map

Listen to marsquakes and measure the crust, mantle and core of the planet.

Historical context

Every planet before this had been studied from outside, by its surface and its air. InSight put a seismometer on the ground of Mars and let the planet's own quakes light up its interior, the way a struck bell reveals its shape. It listened for four years, until dust on its panels made the power fail.

The voyage, step by step

  1. Down to Elysium

    26 November 2018

    On 26 November 2018 the lander dropped onto a plain chosen for being as flat, dull and empty as any on Mars.

  2. A deliberately dull plain

    2018 CE

    The arm set the instruments straight onto the ground, the first time a spacecraft had placed its own payload on the surface of another planet.

  3. Listening to a planet

    2019 CE

    Under a wind shield shaped like a copper dome, a French-built seismometer began to register the faint shaking of the crust.

  4. The mole that could not dig

    2020 CE

    A self-hammering probe meant to drive five metres down stopped at about forty centimetres, and two years of effort could not free it.

  5. The largest marsquake

    4 May 2022

    On 4 May 2022 a shock of magnitude 4.7 shook the ground for more than six hours, releasing more energy than all the mission's other quakes together.

  6. Dust wins

    15 December 2022

    Month by month the panels dimmed under a film of dust, until on 15 December 2022 the station missed its call and did not answer again.

Outcome

More than 1,300 quakes recorded and the first interior map of another rocky planet.

InSight

Geophysical station that listened to the inside of Mars from Elysium Planitia between 2018 and 2022.

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Sources

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