Yahoo News NASA’s Mars Insight lander snaps incredible selfie on Red Planet
NASA thoughfully provided its Mars Insight lander robot with a pretty effective selfie stick – its own long robotic arm.
The Insight lander has snapped an incredible selfie, showing the probe’s solar panels, tools and its ‘workspace’ where it will drill into the surface.
The InSight lander snapped a series of pictures with its camera, which NASA turned into a stunning mosaic released this week.
InSight landed in November on a mission to study the inside of Mars in order to fid out more about how it formed and understand the processes which led to the birth of all the planets in our solar system.
The lander’s instruments include a seismometer and a probe which will drill 16ft beneath the surface of Mars.
In the two weeks since it landed, scientists are thrilled to find the area in front of the spacecraft pretty much free of rocks, hills and holes.
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That should make it a safe place for InSight’s two geology experiments, which will be moved to the ground in the coming weeks.
Lead scientist Bruce Banerdt of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory says the red sandy expanse might seem ‘pretty plain’ – if it weren’t on Mars. He notes, ‘We’re glad to see that.’
