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    NASA InSight Study finds Mars is Spinning Faster

    August 8, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    NASA’s InSight lander captured this selfie on April 24, 2022, the 1,211th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Dust on its solar panels caused the lander to lose power in December of that year, but data recorded by InSight’s instruments is still leading to new science.
    Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

    Scientists have made the most precise measurements ever of Mars’s rotation, for the first time detecting how the planet wobbles due to the “sloshing” of its molten metal core. The findings, detailed in a recent Nature paper, rely on data from NASA’s InSight Mars lander, which operated for four years before running out of power during its extended mission in December 2022.

    To track the planet’s spin rate, the study’s authors relied on one of InSight’s instruments: a radio transponder and an...

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