NASA's InSight Survived the Trip to Mars ー Now Comes the Wait for Results
*By Conor White*
The Curiosity rover is no longer alone on Mars.
NASA's InSight lander successfully touched down on the Red Planet Monday afternoon, but spectators will have months to wait before any results arrive.
"It's a 26-month mission," said Sarah Lewin, an associate editor at Space.com said. The first results from InSight's experiments are expected sometime in the spring.
InSight marks NASA's first mission to Mars since Curiosity began its journey in 2011. The launch was originally scheduled for 2016 before officials discovered a leak in the rocket's vacuum chamber. As a result, InSight missed its launch window. The delay and necessary repairs added almost $154 million to the mission's price tag, bringing it to a total cost of $814 million.
And even those years of planning didn't guarantee a success.
"Mars missions have like a 40 percent success rate across the world," Lewin said. "NASA is a little bit higher, so there was a definite chance it wouldn't work."
Now that it has safely landed, the probe will be responsible for drilling into Mars ー largely to determine the planet's composition. The robot will also monitor the planet for "Marsquakes."
"We've put a lot of things on Mars that are either orbiters, which are looking down on it, or rovers like Curiosity exploring the surface, but we really don't know what's going on inside," Lewin said.
Energy company Chevron has set a goal to reduce its operational carbon footprint to net zero by 2050. However, the company has not committed to reducing emissions on its gas and oil products.
Google's users will now have extensive greener options. The updated services across platforms will allow users to look for eco-friendly routes in Google Maps, book flights with low carbon emissions, and reduce energy usage at home with Nest thermostats.
The recent California oil spill has wreaked havoc on the shores of Huntington Beach as wildlife habitats and potentially some people have been exposed to the 140,000+ gallons of oil in the ocean. Cheddar News was joined by Dr. Deborah Bronsan, President of Deborah Bronson & Associates to learn more about the environmental dangers and how the area can recover from this tragedy.
Blue Bear Capital, a venture and growth equity firm focusing on AI-powered solutions for the world’s energy, infrastructure, and climate challenges, recently announced it has raised $150 million dollars in new funding. Ernst Sack, Partner at Blue Bear Capital, joins Cheddar Climate the vision his company has when it comes to combating climate change.
Several major carriers have followed in the steps of United Airlines and will now require its staff to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Those airlines include American, Jet Blue, and Alaskan.
