Watch NASA's InSight craft shoot into space for a 6-month journey to Mars


NASA launched its InSight spacecraft from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 4:05 a.m. local time Saturday, sending the unmanned vessel on a six-month journey to Mars.
Unlike the Curiosity rover, InSight will not travel around the red planet once it arrives. Instead, the craft's mission is to use seismic waves to learn about the interior of Mars — the thickness of the planet's crust and the size of its liquid core. InSight is equipped with a probe that can burrow 16 feet into the surface of Mars to take temperature readings.
"Mars is a unique opportunity," said Bruce Banerdt, the InSight mission's chief investigator. "We call it the Goldilocks planet."
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
-
Today's political cartoons - March 30, 2025
Cartoons Sunday's cartoons - strawberry fields forever, secret files, and more
By The Week US Published
-
5 hilariously sparse cartoons about further DOGE cuts
Cartoons Artists take on free audits, report cards, and more
By The Week US Published
-
Following the Tea Horse Road in China
The Week Recommends This network of roads and trails served as vital trading routes
By The Week UK Published
-
We could be living in a black hole
Under the radar And our universe may not be the only one
By Devika Rao, The Week US Published
-
Dark energy may not doom the universe, data suggests
Speed Read The dark energy pushing the universe apart appears to be weakening
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Pharaoh's tomb discovered for first time in 100 years
Speed Read This is the first burial chamber of a pharaoh unearthed since Tutankhamun in 1922
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Scientists report optimal method to boil an egg
Speed Read It takes two temperatures of water to achieve and no fancy gadgets
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Europe records big leap in renewable energy
Speed Read Solar power overtook coal for the first time
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Blue Origin conducts 1st test flight of massive rocket
Speed Read The Jeff Bezos-founded space company conducted a mostly successful test flight of its 320-foot-tall New Glenn rocket
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
US won its war on 'murder hornets,' officials say
Speed Read The announcement comes five years after the hornets were first spotted in the US
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Dark energy data suggest Einstein was right
Speed Read Albert Einstein's 1915 theory of general relativity has been proven correct, according to data collected by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published