Main content

The mission to understand how Mars was formed

The NASA Insight mission is due to land on Mars later today. If all goes to plan, it is going to listen for mini marsquakes and send a burrowing heat probe 15 feet underground. It is all in the name of helping us learn how the rocky planets in our solar system formed billions of years ago. This will be the first look at the interior of any planet other than earth. Newsday's Lawrence Pollard spoke to Professor Tom Pike, who is part of the InSight mission team.

(Photo: The United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas-V rocket with the NASA InSight spacecraft onboard Credit: ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images)

Release date:

Duration:

4 minutes