Our @NASAInSight spacecraft stuck the #MarsLanding!
Its new home is Elysium Planitia, a still, flat region where it’s set to study seismic waves and heat deep below the surface of the Red Planet for a planned two-year mission. Learn more: https://t.co/fIPATUugFo pic.twitter.com/j0hXTjhV6I
— NASA (@NASA) November 26, 2018
Open thread for cool discoveries yet to happen!
cope
First image.
Spanky
Sometimes the magic works and …
sometimes the magic still works.
Yutsano
SPAAAAAAACE!!!
Someone made the joke that if InSight found oil colonies would spring up on Mars overnight.
Spanky
@cope: Bugs on the windshield.
cope
Lots of dust on the lens.
Roger Moore
@Yutsano:
Until Amazon sets up a base there, shipping costs from Mars will remain a major PITA.
cope
Never gets old, does it?
rikyrah
The pictures are WOW…..
Wow….
dmsilev
Looks like we snuck another one in past the Martian defenses.
CaseyL
Woo hooo!!!! It is utterly amazing what NASA can do! Great job!
oldster
Ah, that’s great! I am so happy about that.
Can we refer to this probe as “Chapelle”? Mars, bitches!
Mary G
Speaking as an old broad who grew up watching the control center full of white men in white shirts, it is so exciting to see so many young women in the game today. Still pretty white, though.
ETA: and Dense Pence calls in, ugh.
TenguPhule
@dmsilev:
Those giant martian border walls are murder.
spudgun
@cope: No, it does not! :-D
Amazing…and the cubesats!
The Moar You Know
Well, America is still REALLY good at landing things on Mars. The surface is littered with pieces and ashes of Europe’s and Russia’s attempts to do so.
Spanky
Here’s the AP headline:
But who trusts them, any way?
spudgun
@Mary G: Blergh…and just listened to the NASA administrator on the live feed gushingly praising the fascist orange to high heaven…bit of a damper on the proceedings.
*sigh* Anyway – MARS! Yeah!
germy
Actual “Man on the street” interviews from 1962, asking “Is there life on other planets?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkvffcxQzMY
dmsilev
@TenguPhule: It helps if the probe can fly over the walls.
dexwood
My wife called, her voice filled with excitement, because she was able to watch raw NASA feed in her co-worker’s office since he is a Mars geologist and consultant on this project and others. Pretty cool.
Brachiator
@CaseyL:
Jet Propulsion Labs, and Caltech.
germy
How are the previous mars rovers doing? I recall they thought one of them was no longer operational, and then a windstorm came along to blow all the dust off the solar panels, and the thing woke up again. This was a few years ago.
Are they no longer functioning? They were pretty cool, taking soil samples and pictures.
germy
Found On Mars: Statue Of Elvis
dmsilev
@germy: Spirit is MIA and has been for a few years. Opportunity may have succumbed to the latest round of dust storms and winter; it’s been a few months since we’ve managed to hear from it, but there’s still an outside chance that it will pull through. Curiosity is still going strong. Mars 2020, which doesn’t have a nickname yet, is due to launch in …2020.
S Barker
Thanks Obama!
OzarkHillbilly
@dmsilev: They should’a built a wall.
ETA @TenguPhule: beat me to it.
Cermet
NASA has its up’s and down’s. This is certainly an Up!
Cermet
Next, in five or so hours, the solar panels must successfully unfold. Otherwise, a short up. Doubt that will be an issue – the most dangerous step was the landing.
Chyron HR
Trump is informed of the InSight landing.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
JPL is part of NASA. It’s administered by Caltech, but legally it’s part of NASA. It’s similar to the way that the Lawrence labs are run by UC but legally part of DOE.
Matt McIrvin
@The Moar You Know: This lander’s design is heavily based on the Phoenix lander from 2008. Phoenix was so named because it inherited much of its instrument suite and hardware from a cancelled mission (Mars Surveyor 2001), and another one that crashed (Mars Polar Lander)–a rare US failure at a Mars landing. The latter was around the same time as the embarrassing orbiter mission failure from a mismatch between US and metric units.
TenguPhule
@Matt McIrvin:
Good times. Back then it was the most exciting news of the day.
Matt McIrvin
@TenguPhule: Well, I guess the race for the 2000 presidential nominations was already on at that point, but I recall people treating the whole business as a snoozer (always a danger sign). It was several months after they’d tried and failed to get rid of Bill Clinton… Lots of apprehension about Y2K, too…
dmsilev
@Matt McIrvin:
Forever after an object lesson used by intro science TAs to hammer home ‘always check your units’.
TenguPhule
This fucking story is getting worse by the day.
Police change explanation — again — after killing black man they mistook for an active shooter
We’re on excuse version 3.0 from the Alabama cops at this point.
Matt McIrvin
@Cermet: The biggest risk after landing is probably going to be deploying the new instruments. One of them is a heat probe that’s supposed to bore 5 meters underground.
dm
@TenguPhule: the ones measured in feet aren’t so bad, but the metric ones are awful.
VOR
@Mary G: Pence is the guy who visited NASA, saw a satellite labeled “Do Not Touch”, and immediately touched it.
TenguPhule
@dm: well played.
Cermet
@Matt McIrvin: No panels, no probe and the mission is over. But the mission is pointless if the arm doesn’t work. So, yes to all.
Mnemosyne
I am wearing my space otter socks at work in honor of this day.
Because space otters.
schrodingers_cat
@Mnemosyne: Did you see the story about the otter stealing and killing precious koi in Canada? I think they haven’t caught him yet.
David Evans
@The Moar You Know: Agreed, alas. On the other hand Europe’s Mars Express orbiter has been doing a good job of mapping the Martian surface in 3D for 15 years, and will be available as a data relay for InSight when its cubesats are out of range.
Mnemosyne
@schrodingers_cat:
I have not, but I can’t really blame the poor beast. Otters may be the most adorable members of the weasel family, but they’re still vicious predators at heart, just like our pet kittehs.
schrodingers_cat
@Mnemosyne: He hasn’t been captured yet, they are relocating the koi.