Our Favorite New Rover

Though lacking the appeal of an early Disney name such as Opportunity or Curiosity, Mars’s new rover, InSight, has captured the hearts of the world’s geekiest astronaut hopefuls. As Earth’s newest bet for discovering our own prehistoric past, InSight is the ingenious culmination of years of dedicated work from both American scientists and international partners.

Mars’s youngest resident rover landed back in November of 2018, with investigations beginning just weeks after. In mid-December, InSight deployed the first-ever seismometer, the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS), on a foreign planet. Until its expected deactivation in late 2020, SEIS will observe and measure the impact of waves from marsquakes, meteorite attacks, and other phenomena, allowing scientists of Earth to not only grapple with the internal layering of Mars, but to explore how all rocky bodies are formed.

This technology is a major milestone in our history with Mars and about as important as the InSight landing itself. Each forthcoming marsquake further illuminates, if only for a moment, the structure of the Martian interior through the unique path of seismic waves. "Having the seismometer on the ground is like holding a phone up to your ear," said Philippe Lognonné, the principal investigator of SEIS. Soon, the depth and composition of Mars’s crust, mantle, and core will no longer be a mystery.

As we will see in the coming months, now that this mechanism has been angled in the optimal position and its partner in discovery—the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Probe, or HP³—is set to drill, InSight will delve deeper than ever before, unlocking the secrets of Mars’s evolutionary processes. Within the year, humans will know more about the formation of our solar system than ever before.

To learn more, visit https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-insight-lander-arrives-on-martian-surface-to-learn-what-lies-beneath.