NASA's Mars InSight is no longer operational.
Mission managers have been expecting this for a long time because of the dust on the landers solar panels.
The red planet's seismological shaking was measured by InSight, which was last in touch with the outside world on December 15. NASA said on Wednesday that it was unlikely for it to hear from InSight again.
"We broke new ground, and our science team can be proud of all that we've learned along the way," said Philippe Lognonné, principal investigator of InSight's seismometer.
The full name of the mission is Interior Exploration Using seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, but it was shortened to InSight in order to focus on the mysteries of Mars's deep interior. The goal of the $830 million mission was to answer questions about the planet.
Mars does not have the sliding of pieces of crust that shape the surface of our planet. marsquakes are driven by other stresses like the Shrinking and cracking of the crust as it cools
The final year of the mission was marked by the discovery of a large space rock that hit Mars on Christmas Eve last year. The crater and chunks of underground ice that were kicked up to the surface by the impact were photographed by NASA. It was closer to the equator than any other ice discovery.
The largest of the marsquakes was recorded in May.
Scientists expected the seismometer to live up to it. It was the first time that earthquakes have been recorded on another planet It wasn't the first off-earth quake. NASA astronauts left seismometers on the moon in order to record moon earthquakes.
The sonogram of the planet was created by the waves bouncing around the interior. It turned out to be thinner than expected. Scientists were surprised that the core of the red planet is still molten. Lighter elements are mixed in with the iron, which is why the core is larger than anticipated. The melting point would be lower if those elements were present.
The geological structure helps scientists understand how quickly heat is flowing out of Mars, and it also helps them reconstruct what the surface might have been like several billion years ago.
The instrument that was supposed to burrow 16 feet underground was never able to get far beneath the surface. The mole was supposed to measure heat flow from the deep inside of Mars.
The weather on Mars was measured by other instruments.
It's hard to say goodbye to InSight because we've thought of it as our friend and colleague for the last four years. It has been well deserved.
The Perseverance rover is setting the stage for a future mission when InSight ends. A stick of chalk is the size of a tube of rock samples that will be dropped onto the ground.
A variety of rocks have been drilled in the Jezero crater. The Mars Sample Return mission will bring the rocks back to Earth to be studied by scientists.
The plan is for the rover to bring the sample tubes to the Mars Sample Return landers.
If something goes wrong with Perseverance, the samples that are being dropped on the ground are a backup. The plan would be for the lander to set down near the samples that Perseverance had already dropped and for the helicopter to retrieve the samples.
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