They then compared that figure with two previous measurements of the core derived the from spacecraft’s seismometer.
The measurement allows the scientists to determine the size of the core: based on RISE data, the core has a radius of roughly 1,835 km (1,140 miles). The RISE data were also used by the study authors to measure Mars’ wobble - called its nutation - due to sloshing in its liquid core. “But despite this, we were still surprised along the way - and it’s not over, since RISE still has a lot to reveal about Mars.” We have spent a lot of time and energy preparing for the experiment and anticipating these discoveries,” Dr. So can the solar wind, the electrons and protons flung into deep space from the Sun. They had their work cut out for them to eliminate sources of noise: water slows radio signals, so moisture in the Earth’s atmosphere can distort the signal coming back from Mars. Le Maistre and colleagues examined data from InSight’s first 900 Martian days - enough time to look for such variations. “It takes a very long time and a lot of data to accumulate before we can even see these variations.”ĭr.
Sebastien Le Maistre, a researcher at the Royal Observatory of Belgium. “What we’re looking for are variations that are just a few tens of centimeters over the course of a Martian year,” said RISE principal investigator Dr. Measuring the shift enabled researchers to determine how fast the planet rotates. When scientists received the reflected signal, they would look for tiny changes in frequency caused by the Doppler shift. In the case of InSight, scientists would beam a radio signal to the lander using the Deep Space Network.
Together, these enhancements provided data about five times more accurate than what was available for the Viking landers. The RISE instrument on the InSight lander is part of a long tradition of Mars landers using radio waves for science, including the twin Viking landers in the 1970s and the Pathfinder lander in the 1990s.īut none of those missions had the advantage of InSight’s advanced radio technology and upgrades to the antennas within NASA’s Deep Space Network on Earth. An artist’s impression of the InSight lander on Mars.
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