An image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows one last view of the now-retired InSight lander mission.
NASA’s Insight lander spent four years on the surface of Mars , uncovering secrets of the planet’s interior, but it eventually succumbed to the most martian of environmental threats: dust. Mars has periodic dust storms that can whip up into huge global events, lifting dust up into the air and then dumping it on everything in sight — including solar panels.
This image was taken on October 23 of this year using MRO’s High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera. Researchers at NASA wanted to get one last image of InSight, to say farewell and to see how its environment had changed in the past two years. Please enable Javascript to view this content Dust devils are like tiny tornadoes that occur frequently on Mars due to its thin atmosphere, and that sculpt the surface into dramatic shapes. Data from InSight showed that these were seasonal phenomena, being more common in summer and tailing off in the colder winter months. Tracks of dust devils are visible near to the InSight landing location, and researchers could match these tracks to data from the lander about wind speed and direction.
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