Do you remember the scene where you were enjoying catching dolls in the game hall? Just a few days ago, NASA staged a good show of catching dolls from the air on Mars, 60 million kilometers away!
Since landing on Mars on November 26, Insight has been revitalizing its energy and preparing for this critical mission. On December 19, the engineer remotely controlled the 1.8-meter-long robotic arm of Insight, accurately grabbed the seismometer on the landing platform, and placed it carefully on the ground.
research team had repeatedly practiced "grabbing dolls" in a simulated Mars field in California. Now that it is successful in one fell swoop, everyone is extremely excited. NASA said at a press conference that Insight completed its mission ahead of schedule in this Mars "landing war" and performed perfectly. Tom Hoffman, project manager of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), also praised the Insight's performance far exceeded expectations, and the successful placement of seismometers was no less than a generous Christmas "gift package".
catching this Martian "doll" is by no means easy. First, scientists need to analyze images of the Martian terrain around the lander to find the best location for deploying the instrument. A few days ago, scientists used 11 photos to generate a "self-portrait" based on the images sent back by the device deployment camera (IDC) on the Insight robot arm to splice it, confirming that the lander is safe and the solar "big umbrella" has been unfolded smoothly, which can continuously provide it with energy.
Finally, the scientists used the photos sent back by the wide-angle camera below the lander platform to generate a "working space map". This image is 4 meters long and 2 meters wide, and is spliced from 52 photos, showing us the flat land around Insight. Of course, taking such clear soil photos is not to study what crops are suitable for Mars, but to confirm that there are no large pieces of sand and gravel and other debris at the location of the instrument deployment.
December 18, after verifying that there is no problem with the grab and placement function of the robot arm, NASA engineers issued the "catch doll" command to Insight. On December 19, under everyone's nervous gaze, Insight easily grabbed the seismometer and gently placed it 1.6 meters away. Bruce Banerdt, chief researcher at
, said that deploying a seismometer is just as important as landing on Mars, because the seismometer is the highest priority instrument carried by Insight and will undertake up to three-quarters of the task in this study.
Principal researcher Philippe Lognonné, the Paris Institute of Geophysics (IPGP), said that putting a seismometer accurately on the ground is like sticking a mobile phone next to your ear, which means that scientists can clearly hear all the seismic waves coming from the surface and deep of Mars.
In fact, the landing field of Insight is not completely horizontal, but has an inclination angle of 2 to 3 degrees. Over the next few days, researchers will level the seismometer and prepare for grabbing the next "Mars doll." It is estimated that it will take two months to deploy all scientific research instruments of Insight. Fortunately, there is no urban management on Mars, so it can "set up stalls" as slowly as possible.
Universe V Past - Focus on science and popular science | Please pay attention to
