MELBOURNE, Fla. – Thanks to NASA's successful InSight mission, the space agency is one step closer to finding out how the rocky planets in our solar system first formed. It also may provide insight as to why Earth and Mars evolved so differently.
Traveling for a little more than six months, InSight completed 201,223,981 miles at a top speed of 6,200 mph by the time it landed on Mars just before 3 p.m. EST Monday. Coincidentally, the Mars Curiosity Rover launched on the same day – Nov. 26 – seven years earlier from Cape Canaveral.
The InSight landing coverage was streamed live on NASA TV, YouTube and Ustream. People around the world hosted watch parties to watch InSight land successfully.
With more than 90 viewing locations across the U.S. and others around the world such as France and Germany, InSight had quite an audience for its landing.
Barrie and Sandra Rose traveled from the Isle of Man between Great Britain and Ireland and watched the landing at the Kennedy Space Center.
"We have been here since the beginning, before we even went to the moon, and it's just phenomenal when you realize how far we've come and where we're going," said Sandra Rose, 71.