InSight Lander Takes Selfie on Mars

Explanation: This is what NASA's Insight lander looks like on Mars. With its solar panels , InSight is about the size of a small bus. Insight successfully landed on Mars in November with a main objective to detect seismic activity . The featured selfie is a compilation of several images taken of different parts of the InSight lander, by the lander's arm , at different times. SEIS , the orange-domed seismometer seen near the image center last month, has now been placed on the Martian surface . With this selfie, Mars InSight continues a long tradition of robotic spacecraft on Mars taking and returning images of themselves, including Viking , Sojourner , Pathfinder , Spirit , Opportunity , Phoenix , and Curiosity . Data taken by Mars Insight is expected to give humanity unprecedented data involving the interior of Mars , a region thought to harbor formation clues not only about Mars, but Earth .

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