By Aahil
November 02, 2022
On Christmas Eve last year, the Insight Mars lander heard an earthquake blast through the surface of the red planet.
The meteor's impact on Mars revealed massive, boulder-sized ice shards that excited scientists even more than the seismic activity.
The discovery is somewhat of a grand finale for NASA's Insight lander, which is quickly losing power and was just reported in two linked studies in the journal Science.
The photons that it needs to turn into energy are blocked out by the layers of dirt from the red desert world.
To get as much work done before the hardware fails, the team has scaled back Insight's activities.
NASA believes the 500-foot-wide, 70-foot-deep crater will teach scientists about Mars' historical climate and how ice was buried.
Ingrid Daubar, a Brown University planetary scientist who leads InSight's impact research working group, said they are convinced the ice came from Mars and not the meteor.