The first robot to investigate an earthquake travels to Mars

The first specialized robotic seismic research laboratory, called InSight, is sent by the US Space Agency (NASA) to Mars, with the aim of studying the interior of the planet in great depth with the help of seismic waves. This is the first time, after the "Apollo" missions to the Moon, that NASA will place a seismograph on another planet. The InSight mission (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) is scheduled to launch with a 5-meter Atlas 57 rocket of the United Launch Alliance (ULA) on Saturday, May 5, between 14:00 and 16:00 Greece, from Vadenberg Air Force Base in California.

It will be the first interplanetary mission in US history to begin on the west rather than east coast of the United States, breaking Florida's monopoly on space launches. If, for any reason, the launch is postponed to Saturday, the "window" for a mission to Mars will remain open until June 8. InSight is not a moving rover, but a static automated science lab. After a journey of 485 million kilometers and its landing in the Elysium Planitia region of the northern hemisphere (which is scheduled to take place on November 26, 2018), it will for the first time 'see' with its instruments deep below the Martian surface, in order to study the subsoil of the "red" planet, including detecting earthquakes on Mars.

Because there is no tectonic activity on Mars like on Earth, that is, the movement and collision of tectonic plates, Marsquakes are estimated to be much weaker and are caused by other causes, such as surface shrinkage due to global cooling, or rising magma pressure from its bowels or even the fall of meteorites on it. Scientists expect to "catch" up to 100 Martian earthquakes of up to six magnitude.

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