{"id":18246,"date":"2018-12-06T20:32:09","date_gmt":"2018-12-06T12:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/nasas-mars-insight-lander-snaps-selfies-galore-including-a-name-check-for-its-fans\/"},"modified":"2018-12-06T20:32:09","modified_gmt":"2018-12-06T12:32:09","slug":"nasas-mars-insight-lander-snaps-selfies-galore-including-a-name-check-for-its-fans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/nasas-mars-insight-lander-snaps-selfies-galore-including-a-name-check-for-its-fans\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA\u2019s Mars InSight lander snaps selfies galore, including a name check for its fans"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Mars
A photo snapped by the camera on the InSight lander\u2019s robotic arm shows instruments on the spacecraft\u2019s deck with Martian terrain in the background. The pointer indicates the location of two chips bearing the microscopic etched names of 2.4 million fans. (NASA \/ JPL-Caltech Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One week after landing on the Martian plain of Elysium Planitia, NASA\u2019s InSight lander is on a selfie-snapping spree \u2014 and the photos could be used as a guide for 2.4 million Earthlings and their descendants to look for their names.<\/p>\n

InSight\u2019s selfies aren\u2019t meant to be a vanity project for the lander or its creators. Rather, they signal the start of a picture-taking campaign that\u2019s designed to identify the best spots to plunk down the mission\u2019s seismometer and temperature-measuring \u201cmole.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pictures from full-color Instrument Deployment Camera, which is mounted on the spacecraft\u2019s 6-foot-long robotic arm, will help scientist ensure that the spots they pick will be sufficiently level and rock-free to accommodate the first instruments to be lifted up and placed down permanently on the surface of another planet.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday we can see the first glimpses of our workspace,\u201d Bruce Banerdt, the mission\u2019s principal investigator at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a news release. \u201cBy early next week, we\u2019ll be imaging it in finer detail and creating a full mosaic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Listen to Mars<\/strong>: InSight lander captures first sounds of the Martian wind<\/h4>\n

One of the pictures shows the location of two dime-sized microchips documenting millions of names that were submitted to JPL for inclusion on the spacecraft. Each name is etched out in extremely tiny letters, marked in lines that are mere nanometers wide.<\/p>\n

Another imaging device, known as the Instrument Context Camera, is mounted beneath the lander\u2019s deck to provide a different perspective for placement.<\/p>\n

JPL\u2019s Tom Hoffman, project manager for the InSight mission, said the view will be a bit hazy, due to dust and debris that was thrown up during last week\u2019s landing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a protective cover on the Instrument Context Camera, but somehow dust still managed to get onto the lens,\u201dhe said. \u201cWhile this is unfortunate, it will not affect the role of the camera, which is to take images of the area in front of the lander where our instruments will eventually be placed.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019ll take at least a couple of months to get the instruments situated and calibrated for InSight\u2019s primary mission, which aims to document seismic activity and subsurface heat flow over the course of an entire Martian year (or about two Earth years). In the meantime, feast your eyes on these InSight selfies:<\/p>\n

\"View
A partial view of the deck of NASA\u2019s InSight lander, where it stands on the Martian plains Elysium Planitia. The color-calibrated image was received on Dec. 4. (NASA \/ JPL-Caltech Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"View
NASA\u2019s InSight spacecraft took a color-calibrated image of its robotic arm using its Instrument Deployment Camera on Dec. 4. (NASA \/ JPL-Caltech Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Dusty
NASA\u2019s InSight spacecraft flipped open the lens cover on its Instrument Context Camera on Nov. 30, 2018, and captured this dust-flecked view of Mars. A rock can be seen near the lower edge of the picture, near a footpad visible at lower right corner. Located below the deck of the InSight lander, the ICC has a fisheye view, creating a curved horizon. (NASA \/ JPL-Caltech Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A photo snapped by the camera on the InSight lander\u2019s robotic arm shows instruments on the spacecraft\u2019s deck with Martian terrain in the background. The pointer indicates the location of two chips bearing the microscopic etched names of 2.4 million fans. (NASA \/ JPL-Caltech Photo) One week after landing on the Martian plain of Elysium […]<\/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":[927,367,190],"class_list":["post-18246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-insight","tag-mars","tag-nasa"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18246"}],"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=18246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18246\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}