NASA’S new Insight lander will add to humans’ long fascination with Mars

CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA.» In our solar system family, Mars is Earth’s next of kin, the next-door relative that has captivated humans for millennia. The attraction is sure to grow with Monday’s arrival of a NASA lander named Insight.

Insight should provide our best look yet at Mars’ deep interior, using a mechanical mole to tunnel 16 feet deep to measure internal heat, and a seismometer to register quakes, meteorite strikes and anything else that might start the red planet shaking.

Scientists consider Mars a tantalizing time capsule. It is less geologically active than the twiceas-big Earth and so retains much of its early history. By studying the preserved heart of Mars, Insight can teach us how our solar system’s rocky planets formed 4½ billion years ago and why they turned out so different.

“Venus is hot enough to melt lead. Mercury has a sunbaked surface. Mars is pretty cold today. But Earth is a nice place to take a vacation, so we’d really like to know why one planet goes one way, another planet goes another way,” said Insight’s lead scientist Bruce Banerdt of NASA’S Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

Today’s Earthlings are lured to Mars for a variety of reasons.

Mars — “an incredible natural laboratory” — is reasonably easy to get to, and the U.S., at least, has a proven track record there, noted Lori Glaze, NASA’S acting director of planetary science. The cherry on top is that Mars may have once been flush with water and could have harbored life.

On Monday, the space agency announced Jezero Crater as the landing site for the Mars 2020 rover, which will gather samples and stash them for return to Earth in the early 2030s. The crater’s ancient lake and river system is brimming with diverse rocks, making it a potential hot spot for past life.