HiRISE Studies the Dust on InSight

NASA's InSight Mars lander acquires the same reddish-brown hue as the rest of the planet in a set of images captured by the agency's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) using its High-Resolution Imagine Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera. This video shows images taken by HiRISE between Dec. 11, 2018, just a couple weeks after InSight landed on Mars, and Oct. 23, 2024. In the images, InSight often appears as a bright, blue dot due to its reflection of sunlight. A dark halo was scorched into the ground by the spacecraft's retrorocket thrusters; this halo fades away over time. Dark stripes that can be seen on the surface are tracks left by passing dust devils. Figure A is the single HiRISE image taken on Oct. 23, 2024. Monitoring the change in dust at the Martian surface helps scientists understand how quickly the surface changes at a given location over time. That's particularly helpful for ascertaining the age of meteoroid craters, which serve as time-keepers on surface: Understanding how quickly they're fading lets scientists estimate how long they've been there, and thus how old that particular surface is. Animation available at https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA26515