Microsoft Word In a first, nasa mars lander feels shockwaves from meteor impact
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(@RS IELTS) Trembling planet
Trembling planet InSight touched down on Mars in the blandest spot its team members could identify—a flat, sandy plain called Elysium Planitia near the planet’s equator. “I’m very, very happy that it looks like we have an incredibly safe and boring-looking landing plain. That’s exactly what we were going for—it’s what the landing site selection people promised me," JPL’s Tom Hoffman , the InSight project manager, said in 2018 , after it landed. "They promised me sandy with no rocks. But there’s one rock, so I might have to talk with them about that.” Unlike the spacecraft that focus on dramatic Martian terrains—the planet’s massive volcanoes, dramatic rift valleys and polar ice caps—InSight’s job was to look beneath the surface. And that meant it needed no distractions, plus plenty of sunlight to power its instruments. Soon after landing, InSight unfurled its solar panels and deployed an exquisitely sensitive seismometer that would monitor the trembling planet. As Mars shakes, seismic waves bounce around and travel through the planet’s interior. Those waves carry information about the materials and boundaries they’ve moved through, so scientists can collect them and use those records to make a map of the Martian crust, mantle, and curiously large core . Over nearly four Earth-years, InSight has measured more than 1,300 tremors. For much of the mission, the Marsquakes have been small; but over the past year, a handful of large quakes have jolted the planet, with the strongest—nearly a magnitude 5, something scientists had been hoping for — rolling through in May . Now, as the spacecraft’s power dwindles, mission leaders say the spacecraft lived a good life. With the exception of one hiccup, a heat probe that couldn’t burrow into the Martian soil as expected, the mission has met its objectives. “We’ve been able to illuminate the interior structure of Mars for the first time, instead of having a fuzzy picture that is informed by analogy to the Earth, or the moon,” Banerdt says. “Mars is now a solidly understood planet. It’s not like we know everything about what’s going on inside, but we know what the basic building blocks of Mars are.” Download 72.59 Kb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
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