The InSight lander will be able to bore beneath Mars' surface to extract information about how the planet formed (Photo : NASA)
NASA is wasting no time in exploring this solar system. The Mars Curiosity rover just landed on the Red Planet's surface, and NASA is already looking forward to sending more probes out into our solar system. A just-approved mission named InSight plans on getting another terrestrial planet explorer on Mars by as early as 2016.
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NASA's InSight mission is scheduled for a March 2016 launch and a September 2016 arrival date on Mars.
While the Mars Curiosity rover will be limited to surface expenditures only, InSight, on the other hand, aims to dig a little deeper.
"By using sophisticated geophysical instruments, InSight will delve deep beneath the surface of Mars, detecting the fingerprints of the processes of terrestrial planet formation, as well as measuring the planet's "vital signs": Its "pulse" (seismology), "temperature" (heat flow probe), and "reflexes" (precision tracking)," says NASA's mission webpage.
NASA is hoping that by studying the interior of Mars, they can gain more insight into planet formation.
"It happens that Mars is in the "sweet spot" - big enough to have undergone most of the early processes that fundamentally shaped the terrestrial bodies (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Earth's Moon and Mars), but small enough to have retained the signature of those processes for the next four billion years (unlike Earth)," says the InSight press release.
Mars is also less geologically active than Earth, so its insides are better preserved than Earth's.
"InSight's instruments will be designed to pick up any seismic activity rumbling through the planet; take note of any meteor impacts on the surface; burrow as much as 16 feet deep to study how heat flows underground; and measure how Mars' two moons exert tidal forces on the planet, causing it to stretch one way or another," according to Los Angeles Times science writer Amina Khan.
The InSight mission proposal beat out two other mission proposals: one to Saturn's moon Titan, and another one that planned on landing a spacecraft on a comet.