NASA’s most recent mission to Mars known as InSight officially landed this afternoon.
Dozens of people gathered at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center to celebrate and watch the event live. Guests were able to have fun with a photo booth, get temporary space tattoos and even interact with scientists to learn more about space exploration.
According to NASA, landing on Mars is actually quite difficult. They say only 40% of the missions sent to Mars, by any space agency, have been successful. In fact, the U.S. is the only nation around the World to successfully land on the Red Planet.
InSight is known as a martian lander, which is different from the rovers previously used.
“Landers just sit stationary in one place. InSight is going to deploy instruments down onto the surface of Mars that are going to listen to the seismic signals that are coming out of Mars’ interior and also to measure the heat transmitted through the planet,” said NASA Planetary Scientist, Dr. Renee Weber.
This mission will help scientist understand the early evolution of all the rocky planets, including Earth.
“So that’s helping us learn about Mars’ internal structure. You know, whether is has a crust, a mantle, a core? Whether the core is liquid or solid? How hot it is and what it’s made of? And these are the questions that help us understand by extension how all terrestrial planets formed and evolved. So not only Mars but also Earth, Mercury, Venus, and the moon which are the inner planets of our solar system,” Dr. Weber said.
Guests at the watch party told WZDX the best part of witnessing history was seeing how proud the team at NASA was when they successfully landed InSight.
“Seeing the reactions on the people’s faces to see what they’ve been working on for so long actually come into play. It was cool to see their success,” said 11-year-old Jon Robert.
The event at the USSRC lasted from noon-5pm.
For more information on InSight check out the links below.
