The landing, which took place around 21 on Monday (Italian time), sparked the exultation of NASA: the mission of the Insight probe to Mars has successfully begun, after a journey of six and a half months and 480 million kilometers covered, thanks also to a touch of made in Italy. Indeed Insight in his long and successful journey into space was guided by an Italian "compass", the space tracker built by Leonardo in Campi Bisenzio. The whole world followed the delicate phases of the descent, even the Nasdaq screen in Times Square, New York, broadcast the live coverage of the American Space Agency.
Now the research operations on the red planet begin with the opening of the solar panels, which will allow the vehicle to have sufficient energy to begin a long underground exploration activity, with a probe that will it will measure the temperature down to a depth of five metres and in this way it will be able to reveal whether a form of heat exists inside Mars: this could mean that the water discovered last July under the ice of the Martian South Pole could be hotter than you think.
This is in fact one of the most important missions to Mars, because unlike the previous ones it will be the first to study the interior of a planet using ground-based instruments, from the surface investigate its interior. A way to learn more about the formation of the rocky planets of the solar system, including ours. A seismograph will listen for earthquakes, vibrations caused by asteroid impacts and surface activities such as storms and other atmospheric phenomena; a probe that will penetrate up to five meters below the surface (until now only Curiosity had pierced the rock for just a few centimeters) to measure the internal temperature; and a radio instrument to "weigh" the fluctuations and thus have clues about the nature of its nucleus.
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According to NASA's roadmap, Insight will be fully operational and ready to work ten weeks after ditching. In fact, during this period, the Jpl team will have to use the cameras to visualize what surrounds it and carefully study where to place the delicate instruments to "audition" the heartbeats and the temperature in depth. However, the first to come into operation a week after arrival will be Reis, the antenna on board the lander which will use a radio signal transmitted to Earth and sent back. It will do so for two years, every day for an hour, and will allow us to measure the planet's oscillations and obtain important information on its metallic core.
The seismometer will be placed three or four weeks later, within the following two weeks it will also have a protective heat and wind shield. The probe that will dig up to five meters to lower the thermometer a week later ed within six weeks it should have completed the borehole to start collecting data and thus reveal, after half a century spent investigating its surface, the secrets that are hidden underground.
