{"id":18229,"date":"2018-12-14T01:08:49","date_gmt":"2018-12-13T17:08:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/nasa-orbiter-spots-insight-lander-and-its-junked-hardware-on-mars-surface\/"},"modified":"2018-12-14T01:08:49","modified_gmt":"2018-12-13T17:08:49","slug":"nasa-orbiter-spots-insight-lander-and-its-junked-hardware-on-mars-surface","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/nasa-orbiter-spots-insight-lander-and-its-junked-hardware-on-mars-surface\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA orbiter spots InSight lander (and its junked hardware) on Mars\u2019 surface"},"content":{"rendered":"
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NASA\u2019s InSight lander (at center, with its two solar arrays), its heat shield (at right) and its parachute (at left) were imaged on Dec. 6 and 11 by the HiRISE camera on NASA\u2019s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Click on the image for a larger version. (NASA \/ JPL-Caltech \/ University of Arizona Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Two weeks after NASA\u2019s InSight lander touched down on Mars, its precise location on Elysium Planitia has been pinpointed, thanks to pictures from NASA\u2019s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s not just the car-sized lander: The orbiter even identified the sites where the spacecraft\u2019s heat shield as well as its backshell and attached parachute ended up.<\/p>\n

In today\u2019s mission update, NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory says the lander, heat shield and parachute are all within 1,000 feet of one another on the \u201cheavenly plain\u201d where InSight is gearing up to monitor Mars\u2019 seismic activity and heat flow.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how Alfred McEwen, principal investigator for Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter\u2019s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE, describes the color scene you see here, based on imagery captured from orbit on Dec. 6 and 11.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIt looks like the heat shield (upper right) has its dark outside facing down, since it is so bright (saturated, probably a specular reflection). The lander (middle) disturbed dust over a fair distance and has darkened the surface, as seen previously at the Phoenix and Curiosity landing sites. The bright spot associated with the lander is probably another specular reflection, and there are two smaller bluish extensions that are the solar arrays, plus their shadows.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe backshell attached to the parachute (lower left) may have yet another specular reflection; the streak extending to the south well beyond the parachute is probably a pre-existing dust devil track. The lander is about 6 meters wide when the solar arrays are fully deployed.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Identifying the location of the lander should provide important context for on-the-ground readings that InSight will be collecting over the course of one Martian year, which translates to roughly two Earth years.<\/p>\n

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This image of the Martian surface was taken by the HiRISE camera on May 30, 2014. Annotations have been added to show where NASA\u2019s InSight lander, its heat shield and its parachute ended up on Nov. 26, 2018. (NASA \/ JPL-Caltech \/ University of Arizona Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NASA\u2019s InSight lander (at center, with its two solar arrays), its heat shield (at right) and its parachute (at left) were imaged on Dec. 6 and 11 by the HiRISE camera on NASA\u2019s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Click on the image for a larger version. (NASA \/ JPL-Caltech \/ University of Arizona Photo) Two weeks after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[927,367,1851],"class_list":["post-18229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-insight","tag-mars","tag-mars-reconnaissance-orbiter"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18229"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18229\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}