NASA’s Mars Lander ‘Mole’ Is Digging Again as Marsquake Mystery Baffles Scientists


The troubled “mole” on NASA’s InSight Mars lander is moving again, even as scientists working on the robot’s seismometer ponder new marsquake mysteries.

InSight touched down in November 2018 on a quest to understand the interior of the Red Planet. Two of its crucial tools for that task were a burrowing heat probe nicknamed the mole and a super-sensitive seismometer to study motion within the planet.

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The poles are not the only place where water can be found on the Martian surface. Credit: ESA/DLR/NASA
This map shows underground water ice on Mars. Cool colors are closer to the surface than warm colors; black zones indicate areas where a spacecraft would sink into fine dust; the outlined box represents the ideal region to send astronauts for them to dig up water ice. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
The area of Mars outlined by the white box, in Arcadia Planitia, is considered a tempting landing site for future human missions thanks to the availability of subsurface water ice. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech

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