From another planet, NASA spacecraft sends 'will' to Earthlings

The will of InSight - the robotic lander working on the red planet - has just been published by NASA on Twitter and Facebook .

"My energy is very low right now, so this may be the last image I send back. Don't worry about me: My time here has been both productive and peaceful. If I can continue to talk to my mission team, I will. But I'll be signing off here soon. Thank you for being with me'' - That's the content of InSight's "will" just posted by NASA.

NASA's InSight lander - (Photo: NASA).

InSight is one of NASA's three active Mars rovers, along with Curiosity and Perseverance. Unlike the other two, however, the InSight lander operates as a research station. It is stationary at a site on the border between the volcanic southern plateau and the flat northern lowlands of Mars.

InSight's primary mission since landing in November 2018 has been to monitor the planet's interior, using sophisticated seismic instruments.

The robot's greatest discovery was to confirm that Mars is not a dead planet, but still has internal activity: earthquakes and possibly volcanoes.

This is pure gold for scientists, not only helping to understand more about the history and evolution of the planet, helping to map Mars, but also bringing more hope to the search for life on the red planet.

Because geological activity is important for preserving the elements necessary for life, for example volcanoes heat up underground water reservoirs, making them more habitable in Mars' cold environment.

If the signs of volcanic activity detected by InSight are confirmed, it would mean that there is theoretical life in Martian underground lakes, right now.

Other Mars rovers have had luck finding these building blocks of life before, such as Curiosity, but NASA has only dared to think about ancient life, because Mars' current environmental factors have hindered the possibility of such life still being present.

But the InSight puzzle piece could be a game-changer. So even though the lander is dead, its legacy will continue to help scientists on their quest to prove we're not alone in the universe.

Like other landers, InSight is powered by solar energy, and after a long time its dust-covered panels no longer work effectively. InSight will be officially declared "dead" when it has completely stopped communicating and its human "colleagues" on Earth have failed in two attempts to contact it.

A few years ago, NASA's Curiosity lander (which landed in 2012) was shut down for months due to a Martian dust storm that blocked its solar power. However, this lucky robot surprisingly reconnected with Earth after the dust storm cleared, continuing a series of extended missions many years after its primary mission ended.