When InSight was transmitting photos to Earth, it suddenly stopped for a period of time. What happened?

The Earth is one of the eight planets in the solar system and the only planet with intelligent life. After humans walked out of the earth, they became infinitely interested in the vast universe. However, due to technological limitations, we are only able to detect the planets in the solar system on the spot. Among them, Mars is the most explored planet after humans walked out of the earth.

The reason why scientists are very interested in Mars is mainly because Mars is also a planet in the habitable zone and has many similarities with the Earth. Scientists hope to learn more about Mars by exploring Mars, and then transform Mars to make it the second habitable planet for humans in the future.

With billions of years of continuous exploration and research on Mars, humans have basically gained a general understanding of some conditions on the surface of Mars. But we still know nothing about the conditions beneath the surface of Mars. Scientists speculate that there may be liquid water under the surface of Mars, and they do not even rule out the existence of underground life.

In order to explore the situation under the surface of Mars, the InSight Mars probe was sent to Mars on May 5, 2018. Its mission is to explore the mysteries under the surface of Mars. After about half a year of sailing, InSight successfully landed on Mars on November 26, 2018, and began the first human mission to explore the mysteries of the "deep heart" of Mars.

Shortly after InSight landed on Mars, it sent back some precious photos to Earth. These photos showed humans a lonely and desolate red world. The flat soil of Mars can be clearly seen in the pictures. It is dotted with countless scattered gravels. In the strong sunlight, the light brown surface is lined with gravelly black shadows.

The InSight landing on Mars was very successful, and no mistakes occurred. The staff on Earth are also sending instructions very carefully every day, controlling the probe that is hundreds of millions of kilometers away. Start working step by step, and you need to be careful when issuing every command, otherwise an inappropriate command may cause failure of the Insight.

Although scientists operate the InSight very carefully and conscientiously, nothing strange has ever happened. But around December last year, when InSight was transmitting new Mars photos and data to Earth, a strange thing happened. It turned out that when the scientific team was receiving multiple images of the robot arm sent back by the InSight, the imaging of the InSight was suddenly interrupted, and the situation did not automatically resume until the next day. What's going on?

InSight is currently the most technological masterpiece of mankind. How could such a sudden signal interruption occur? Until now, the scientific team still doesn’t know what caused it. Logically speaking, for such an advanced detector as InSight, it is impossible for the transmission signal to be interrupted. If the signal is interrupted and then not restored, it may be that the probe was damaged by an unexpected incident on Mars.

What makes scientists strange is that after InSight was interrupted for a period of time, it automatically resumed, which is a bit confusing for people. What exactly happened to InSight during the time it signaled? This issue may always remain a mystery. Some alien researchers even speculated whether this was done by an alien civilization.

Of course, this is just the conjecture of some people. More people still believe that it is possible that the InSight encountered an unexpected situation at that time, which interrupted it for a period of time and then restored itself. This situation is not impossible. Any advanced technological equipment may encounter unexpected situations, and advanced detectors like Insight have their own self-detection and repair functions.

No matter what the real situation is, the sudden interruption of InSight's signal shocked scientists. If it is completely damaged in contact with the earth due to accident, the loss will be huge. It has not yet been completely handed over to its glorious underground detection mission. Fortunately, it finally miraculously recovered and now it has begun a series of detection missions again.

InSight carries a lot of advanced instruments, and even has a drill bit that can drill to a depth of 5 meters underground. If there is liquid water or simple microorganisms under the surface of Mars, there may be good news soon. came. For scientists, whether Mars has underground liquid water and life is very important. According to the current detection of Mars by probes, frozen water lakes have been discovered at the poles, as well as a liquid lake with a very high salt content.

And the Curiosity Mars rover has twice detected obvious signs of methane activity in the Martian atmosphere. On Earth, the main product of methane is microorganisms. If the methane in the Martian atmosphere also comes from microorganisms, then the conjecture that Mars has life may be confirmed. Now scientists are placing their hope on InSight, expecting it to achieve surprising results in future underground explorations.

If Mars can be confirmed to contain a large amount of groundwater and the existence of life, it means that the history of Mars may be more mysterious and complicated than we imagined. At the same time, it also shows that Mars still has obvious geological activities and living ecosystems, which is of great significance for humans to transform Mars in the future and make it the second habitable planet.

If you want to transform Mars, the key to success or failure is whether there is a large amount of liquid water, and human beings cannot survive without water.

If Mars does not have a large amount of water resources for human survival, then future human immigration plans to Mars may be greatly affected. Even if immigration is possible, only a small amount of immigration can be carried out. Because we need to transport it from the earth to Mars, and the cost is too high.

If Mars can be transformed into a livable planet in the future, it will be of extraordinary significance to the earth and mankind. First of all, it can significantly slow down the growing population pressure on the earth. Secondly, mankind will have one more livable planet. An important step for mankind to take interstellar migration. Only by going out can we get rid of various disasters that may occur on the earth, such as resource depletion, serious damage to the ecological environment, and the increasingly severe greenhouse effect.

Of course, Mars is not the ideal second planet for human beings to live on. Even if the transformation can be successful in the future, it can meet the living conditions of mankind. However, due to the insufficient innate conditions of Mars, such as its thin atmosphere and low gravity, it is only an alternative planet for human beings to immigrate to. The real planet for human settlement in the future is outside the solar system.

Only outside the solar system can we find natural planets suitable for human survival, and even find livable planets that are almost identical to the earth. Such a planet is mankind's ideal new earth. Of course, if we want to realize extrasolar immigration, the speed of the spacecraft must at least reach sub-light speed. We don't know when we will be able to realize such technology.