On Saturday, NASA launched its latest Mars lander, InSight, which is designed to get on the surface of the red planet and listen to ‘Marsquakes’. The project costs $993 million, and is aimed to expand knowledge of humans about the conditions of Mars. The lander is expected to settle at Mars on 26 November. Its name InSight is an abbreviation for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport. “The main aim is to know about how quake prone is Mars”, said Jim Green, chief scientist of NASA. The first main instrument carried by the lander is the seismometer, called the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure. The second main instrument is the self hammering probe which will monitor the flow of heat in the planet’s subsurface. The Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package, it is made by the German Space Agency along with Polish Space Agency. The recent probe would be 10 to 16 times deeper than previous missions on Mars. The lander, which is solar and battery powered can operate for 26 Earth months or one year on Mars.
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