NASA's InSight spacecraft sends 'selfie' back to earth

NASA engineers Kris Bruvold (L) and Sandy Krasner - Copyright Al Seib/Pool via REUTERS

By Emma Beswick with With Reuters

Published on 27/11/2018 - 07:55•Updated 08:37

NASA's InSight spacecraft sends 'selfie' back to earth

As NASA’s InSight spacecraft touched down safely on the surface of Mars on Monday, it sent a modern souvenir back to Earth.

It has garnered attention for being the first robotic lander designed to study the deep interior of a distant world.

The probe sent a grainy "selfie" photograph back to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) near Los Angles, USA, minutes after it touched down.

It showed the machine's new surroundings on the Red Planet and the edge of one lander leg near a rock.

The InSight Mars lander took the image showing the area in front of the lander using its lander-mounted, Instrument Context Camera (ICC), with the ICC image field of view of 124 x 124 degrees.

The probe is trying to answer the question of what is inside the Red Planet.

While other Mars probes have been looking for water and signs of life on the red planet, the robotic lander InSight is very different — it is looking at how warm and geologically-active the planet is.

Find out exactly what the Insight spacecraft is hoping to find here.

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