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InSight Sends Home Mars Weather Reports for All to See. Daily

Latest InSight weather report from Mars 1 photo
Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Now sitting cozily in the Elysium Planitia region on Mars, NASA’s InSight lander is already hard at work trying to unravel the mysteries of the planet. Its primary mission is to look under the reddish surface and find out what it can about quakes, Mars' rotation axis, the planet's core or the amount of heat escaping from underneath.
But some of its instruments allow it to look above it as well. Among other things, InSIght is equipped with an array of sensors called Auxiliary Payload Subsystem (APSS). APSS is used to collect weather information every second, and it will do so for the next two years. That means that eventually humanity will have a pretty good picture of Mars weather.

All that data is, of course, being sent back to Earth, and that gave the American space agency an idea on how to provide “geeky fun for meteorologists” and all those interested in knowing how the weather is on Mars.

With the help of JPL, the Cornell University and Spain's Centro de Astrobiología, NASA developed a tool that allows InSight-gathered data regarding Mars’ temperature, wind and air pressure to be sent back to Earth and viewed, daily, by all those interested.

"It gives you the sense of visiting an alien place," said in a statement Don Banfield of Cornell University "Mars has familiar atmospheric phenomena that are still quite different than those on Earth."

Just so you know, over the past week or so the hottest day on Mars was February 11, when the air outside was a chili -10 degrees Celsius (15 F). On a regular basis, the minimum temperature on the surface seems to be a steady -95 degrees Celsius (-138 F).

If you’re looking to make a career out of knowing how’s the weather on Mars, you can check this link on a regular basis.
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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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