End of the line nears for NASA InSight Mars lander

Dust on its solar panels will likely cause NASA's InSight lander to retire this summer, after four years of probing Mars' interior.

NASA said that the data left behind by the landers will be used by scientists around the world for years to come, helping to improve our understanding of planet formation.

A magnitude 5 earthquake on May 4 was the largest so far.

The seismometer will be turned off around July.

Some pictures may still be taken after the landers energy level is checked. The mission will be stopped at the end of 2022, at the earliest.

The solar panels on the lander are seven feet wide and have seven feet of dust on them.

InSight will soon run out of batteries, as it is already running on only a tenth of the energy it had at the beginning.

The speed at which dust accumulated was compared to what NASA had estimated.

A year ago, the landers robotic arm was put to use to remove dust from the solar panels, extending the mission.

The arm used dust itself to clear the panels, as it scooped up some martian soil and gently dropped onto the robot so the dirt was blown across the solar panels.

Adding something to the lander to clean the panels was forgone due to costs.

He said that a mechanism would leave less to put into the science instruments.

There is a treasure trove.

The US and China sent rovers to Mars in November of last year.

The seismometer made in France paved the way for great advances.

The interior was a big question mark, according to Banerdt, who has worked on the mission for more than a decade.

We have been able to map out the inside of Mars for the first time in history thanks to InSight.

The interior of the planet is offered a picture by the waves of seismology.

Scientists were able to confirm that the core of Mars is liquid and that the thickness of the Martian crust is less dense than previously thought.

The magnitude 5 earthquake in early May was close to what scientists thought would be the maximum on Mars, though it would not be considered a huge tremor on Earth.

This earthquake is going to be a treasure trove of scientific information when we get our teeth into it.

He explained that earthquakes are caused by plate tectonics. They can also be triggered when the Earth's crust moves due to temperature anomalies.

Scientists think they are dealing with this type of vibration on Mars.

Not all of InSight's scientific operations have gone smoothly, such as when the heat probe had trouble being buried below the surface to take the planet's temperature because of the composition of the soil where the robot landed.

In light of the success of the seismometer, NASA is considering using the technique elsewhere in the future.

We want to set up a complete network on the moon to understand what is happening there.

There will be a new year in 2022.

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