The robotic lander, which touched down on the Red Planet on Monday (Nov. 26), is equipped with a seismometer and self-hammering “mole” to probe into the deep interior of Mars. The data returned from the U.S.-led international mission will help inform scientists on how worlds such as our own were formed.
As with previous NASA landers and rovers, InSight is adorned with the flags and logos of the countries and space agencies involved in its mission (or at least most of them, more on that below). It is also decorated with a look-and-you-might-miss-it pattern of dots that continues a tradition started by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.