Community Corner
Watch Mars Probe Touchdown Live At Chabot
The viewing event is from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. today at the Chabot Space and Science Center's Megadome theater in Oakland.
OAKLAND, CA – Chabot Space and Science Center will live stream the touchdown of NASA's robotic lander InSight on Mars today.
The probe is set to plunge through the thin Martian atmosphere, heat shield first, and use a parachute to slow down.
The touchdown will be live streamed from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in Chabot's Planetarium and Megadome theaters.
Find out what's happening in Rockridgefor free with the latest updates from Patch.
InSight is set to touch down on Mars at about noon. After landing, it will fire its retro rockets to slowly descend to the surface and then land on the smooth plains of Elysium Planitia, where it will deploy a seismometer and burrow a heat probe.
Astronomers at Chabot will talk about InSight and explore the center's new exhibit, "Going the Distance: Our Reach into Space," where you can pilot a rover across a Martian terrain.
Find out what's happening in Rockridgefor free with the latest updates from Patch.
InSight, short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, is the first outer space robotic explorer to study in-depth the "inner space" of Mars: its crust, mantle, and core, according to NASA's website.
Studying Mars' interior will reveal how other rocky planets in the inner solar system -- Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars -- formed more than 4 billion years ago, as well as rocky exoplanets. InSight will also measure tectonic activity and meteorite impacts on Mars today.
Admission to the live stream event is $8. Bean Sprouts Café will be open for lunch from 11am-1pm for the event
More information can be found at https://chabotspace.org/calendar/nasa-insight-landing-live-stream.
Chabot is at 10000 Skyline Blvd. in Oakland.
--Bay City News contributed to this post/PHOTO: HALE CRATER, MARS - UNSPECIFIED DATE: In this handout provided by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, dark, narrow streaks on the slopes of Hale Crater are inferred to be formed by seasonal flow of water on surface of present-day Mars. These dark features on the slopes are called 'recurring slope lineae' or RSL. (Photo by NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona via Getty Images)