Page 106 - How It Works - Book Of Amazing Answers To Curious Questions, Volume 05-15

What is the Solar power Sunny spot

Insight’s solar arrays are
The target can be
vital for keeping its anywhere on Mars as long
as it’s along the equator,
new Mars duration of the mission. for maximum sunshine.
instruments powered for the
lander?

NASA’s next mission

will offer clues about
the formation of the
Solar System

e might have sent over a dozen Quake detector
rovers, landers and orbiters to Mars, A seismometer will
Wbut that doesn’t mean we are done measure any quakes or
sending probes to the Red Planet – we still have other internal activity. NASA technicians test
Insight’s solar arrays in
a lot to discover. a clean room
NASA’s InSight (Interior Exploration using
Seismic Investigations) lander is planned to
launch in March 2016 and will touch down on
the Martian surface just six months later. As the
acronym suggests, its two-year mission will
involve peering deep beneath the Martian
crust at a landing site near the equator to study
Mars’ internal processes and structure, as well
as any tectonic activity and meteorite impacts. Deep heat
This is much more than figuring out what Insight’s heat fl ow

Mars is made of or even the history of this one probe burrows its
temperature sensors
planet. Geologically, Mars is practically inert several metres beneath
compared to a planet like Earth, as it has no the surface of Mars.
plate tectonics, and so there is a much more
complete history of how it has evolved over the
last few billion years. Therefore by
investigating Mars’s interior, scientists will be
able to gain a much better understanding of
how all of the terrestrial planets formed.

Titan, with its polar Is Titan Earth’s toxic twin?
vortex (below),
shrouded in the
haze of its thick
It’s bitterly cold and shrouded in a choking natural
atmosphere
‘smog’, but Titan is more like Earth than you’d think
enus is often referred to as ‘Earth’s evil twin’ probe, the only spacecraft to have successfully
because despite having similar landed on any celestial body in the outer Solar
Vcharacteristics and evolutionary starting System, in 2005.
line, it went on to become the inhospitable world The team at UCL has found that in Titan’s dense,
that it is today. However, a team of scientists from hazy atmosphere there is also a polar wind that
University College London (UCL) have dubbed the works in a similar way to that of Earth’s, driving
giant moon Titan ‘Earth’s toxic twin’ for a few around seven tons of nitrogen and methane gases
slightly different reasons. out of the atmosphere and into space every day. It’s
Saturn’s biggest natural satellite is the only other thought that both Mars and Venus could feature
place in the Solar System where it rains, has rivers similar polar winds, and it also begs the question:
and surface oceans – of liquid hydrocarbons (like if so many worlds are similar to Earth in this Solar
ethane and methane), rather than water. These System alone, how long can it be before we fi nd © NASA
were recorded during descent of the Huygens another planet capable of supporting life?

106 How It Works