Human exploration of Mars has reached an unprecedented scale, 4 Mars probes in Mars orbit, 3 Mars rovers crawling on the Martian ground, 1 Mars helicopter flying in the Martian sky, and a landing probe working on the Mars Elysium Plain, which is the famous American InSight.
Mars InSight arrived on the Mars Elysium Plain on November 27, 2018, less than 4 years later, there are a number of new discoveries, giving us the opportunity to re-understand Mars, but unfortunately InSight life has entered the countdown, first to understand what the Us InSight has found on Mars in the past four years.
Mars was found to have suddenly dimmed by 27 seconds
There was no rainy weather on Mars, only sunny sunny days, but on March 12, 2019, THE AMERICAN INSIGHT found that the sky suddenly darkened, and the camera recorded a strange scene: a huge shadow moving on the Martian table for 27 seconds, what exactly, was it an asteroid skimming by.
Finally, NASA experts confirmed that this huge shadow should be Phobos is through the sky over InSight, blocking the sunlight, resulting in a solar eclipse on Mars, which is the first time that THE AMERICAN INSIGHT has captured a Martian eclipse, which is certainly a major astronomical spectacle on Mars.
An unknown signal is received for two hours
In September 2019, when U.S. InSight was monitoring the Martian night sky, it suddenly received a mysterious radio signal that lasted for up to two hours, and according to data recorded by InSight, the mysterious signal appeared on the north side of InSight, and despite InSight's efforts to identify the source of the signal, it was in vain.
However, experts have spoken of an unconfirmed view that when high-energy particles in the solar wind interact with Mars' thin atmosphere, they deform the faint Martian magnetic cannon, creating a pulse signal.
Seismic signals with a frequency of 2.4 Hz were found
In 2019, the "internal structure seismic test test" on Mars InSight detected a strange seismic signal with a frequency of 2.4 Hz, and Earth's earthquakes are often related to geological activity inside the earth's crust.
Capture an extraordinary photo
In December 2019, InSight pointed its camera at the night sky on a dark and windy night, capturing an extraordinary photograph showing multiple meteors skimming over Mars, but not dragging long flames like meteors above Earth, which is simply a landscape that cannot be seen on Earth.
A faint rumbling sound was heard
On the 173 Martian days, the "Internal Structure Seismic Test Test" heard a faint rumble with a ground vibration level of 3.7, and on the 235 Martian days, the "Internal Structure Seismic Test Test" once again heard a faint rumble with a ground vibration level of 3.3.
Where do these sounds and vibrations come from? Some people even speculate that the reason why humans can't find Martians is because they have gone under Mars.
InSight life enters the countdown
Unfortunately, the $830 million Mars InSight has entered the "wind candle year". NASA experts pessimistically predict that the "life" of Mars InSight has entered the countdown and will not survive for more than a year, meaning that by 2023 it will be possible to completely lose contact.
Why is "life" counting down? It should be known that the Curiosity rover as "Big Brother" has been driving on the Martian ground for nearly 10 years, and is still exceptionally healthy, constantly walking and exploring every day.
The culprit is Martian dust, Martian air floating dust, more than the Earth's atmosphere, whenever Mars blows dust storms, a large amount of dust appears in the air, dust falls on the solar panel, seriously affecting the power production capacity, that year, the American Opportunity and Courage completely lost contact due to sandstorms.
Recent selfie photos show that the two disc-shaped solar panels on Mars InSight are covered with yellow sand dust, the power supply is getting lower and lower, and it can only meet the photographic and communication functions of Mars InSight at present, and as the sand and dust further increase, the photographic and communication functions will be gradually lost.
In January 2022, due to a Martian dust storm, InSight entered "safe mode" - dormant state due to insufficient power, and a few days later, NASA re-contacted InSight and found that the power remained stable but the power supply was very low, indicating that the two disc-shaped solar panels were covered with a lot of sand.
At last
I really didn't expect that a landing probe that originally generated 4588 watt-hours of electricity, less than 4 years ago, has now become without electricity, which is really sad.
At the same time, InSight gives us the opportunity to re-understand Mars, where do these earthquakes come from without volcanic eruptions and without geological activity? Now that the countdown to inSight life is in place, the mission may be handed over to other Mars rovers. Interesting and informative scientific content, please pay attention to the only WeChat public account: Interesting Exploration