Mars Orbiter Catches Glimpse of Retired, Dust-Laden Lander

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has captured an updated photo of its dust-laden cousin. During its latest swing around the Red Planet, the MRO got a bird’s eye view of InSight, the trailblazing Mars lander that retired two years ago. The image reveals just how much dust has collected on InSight’s stationary body.
For four years, InSight sat in Mars’ Elysium Planitia region—a flat, smooth plain that straddles the planet’s equator—and gathered geodesy data. It was responsible for putting down Mars’ first-ever seismic sensor, alerting scientists to the Red Planet’s violent “Marsquakes.” InSight even captured the sounds of meteoroid impacts on a planet 140 million miles from any human who might hear them. 
But thanks to Martian dust storms, the lander’s solar panels became caked with red sediment, rendering them less effective as time went on. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory was forced to retire InSight due to a lack of power in December 2022. Today, InSight passively helps researchers learn about Martian wind and dust cycles by giving them a clean baseline (a pristine, human-made spacecraft) upon which dirt gradually collects.  
The MRO’s photographs play a role in that new mission. The orbiter has taken annual photos of InSight since December 2018, when the lander first arrived on Mars. Its first picture depicts a bright, fuzzy dot at the center of a dark halo—the result of the spacecraft’s retrorocket thrusters scorching the dry and cratered ground. This dot, tinted blue by NASA’s image processors, is InSight, reflecting sunlight back to the MRO’s High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera. 
Watch NASA’s slideshow, however, and you’ll see the InSight’s dot grow dull. The image preceding Insight’s December 2022 retirement makes it clear that the 19-foot lander is being covered with dust. MRO’s most recent image, taken on Oct. 23, 2024, makes InSight look like yet another geologic feature on which dust has accumulated. 
It’s for this reason that the MRO’s newest photo could offer our final glimpse of InSight. Just as dust led to the lander’s retirement, so it will lead to its burial. With InSight stuck in place, the Red Planet’s dust storms will continue to pile dust on top of the lander, eventually covering it entirely. Depending on what Martian weather comes InSight’s way, the MRO’s eagle-eyed snapshot could also mean farewell.
“It feels a little bittersweet to look at InSight now,” said Ingrid Daubar, a member of JPL’s InSight science team. “It was a successful mission that produced lots of great science. Of course, it would have been nice if it kept going forever, but we knew that wouldn’t happen.”
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