Mars Landing: Check Out The First Image From The Red Planet

PASADENA, CA —It took six months of hurtling through space, but the Mars probe managed by Pasadena-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory landed on the Red Planet Monday. The craft made a harrowing journey through Mars' atmosphere. It deployed a parachute and retro rockets to slow down to a few miles an hour so that it could safely touch down on the surface. Almost immediately, it began transmitting its historic first image from the planet's surface.

The landing marks a major milestone for the InSight mission, which will be the first to study the center of Earth's neighboring planet. InSight, which stands for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport is also the first NASA mission since the Apollo moon landings to place a seismometer on the soil of another celestial body.

The spacecraft touched down on Mars at 11:54 a.m. California time, exactly according to schedule since it launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in Santa Barbara County in May. It's successful landing sparked cheers and applause at JPL in Pasadena.

The InSight craft is not a rover. It is designed to carry out its mission from a stationary position at its landing site, in an area known as the Elysium Planitia, which JPL officials dubbed "the biggest parking lot on Mars," providing a flat solid surface for the craft to do its work.

NASA and JPL used radio signals to monitor InSight's descent to the planet, and was able to quickly confirm touchdown on Mars. Mission managers said earlier it could have taken several hours to confirm the touchdown depending on possible radio signal delays.

As the spacecraft sped toward Mars and began descending through the thin atmosphere -- which lacks the type of friction that usually slows landing objects -- a parachute was deployed, followed by retro rockets to ease the descent. Suspended legs were used to absorb some of the shock.

The InSight mission is aimed at probing the deep interior of Mars in hopes of shedding light on how similar worlds -- like Earth and the moon -- were created, according to JPL. Mission officials noted that Mars and Earth were "molded from the same primordial stuff more than 4.5 billion years ago."

"By comparing Earth's interior to that of Mars, InSight's team members hope to better understand our solar system," according to JPL. "What they learn might even aid the search for Earth-like exoplanets, narrowing down which ones might be able to support life. So while InSight is a Mars mission, it's also much more than a Mars mission."

City News Service and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report. Photo: PASADENA, CA - NOVEMBER 26: In this handout provided by NASA, Tom Hoffman, InSight Project Manager, NASA JPL, (L) and Sue Smrekar, InSight deputy principal investigator, NASA JPL, react after receiving confirmation that the Mars InSight lander successfully touched down on the surface of Mars, inside the Mission Support Area at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on November 26, 2018 in Pasadena, California. InSight, short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, is a Mars lander designed to study the 'inner space' of Mars: its crust, mantle, and core. (Photo by Bill Ingalls/NASA via Getty Images)