Technologies

NASA Mars lander picks up remarkable 1.5-hour-long marsquake

InSight has been feeling some good, good, good vibrations on the red planet.

This story is part of Welcome to Mars, our series exploring the red planet.

NASA’s Mars InSight lander had two big reasons to celebrate on Sept. 18. It marked the lander’s 1,000th Martian day (called a «sol») on the red planet, and it’s also the day it detected a fantastic nearly 1.5-hour-long marsquake estimated to hit a magnitude of 4.2. Talk about shaking things up.

It’s been quite a run of marsquakes for InSight lately. It also picked up quakes of magnitudes 4.1 and 4.2 on Aug. 25. All three of these recent shakers beat out the lander’s previous record holder for magnitude, a 3.7 picked up in 2019. As NASA JPL pointed out in a statement on Wednesday, a 4.2 quake has five times the energy of a 3.7.

Marsquakes tell a story. «The waves change as they travel through a planet’s crust, mantle, and core, providing scientists a way to peer deep below the surface,» NASA said. «What they learn can shed light on how all rocky worlds form, including Earth and its moon.»

InSight landed on Mars in late 2018 and deployed its seismometer in December of that year. The lander’s stationary status might make it seem less compelling than its wheeled rover kin, but the mission has revealed lots of new information about mysterious Mars.

A group of studies released in early 2020 used InSight’s data to paint an intriguing picture of an active Mars underground. InSight established, without a doubt, that Mars is a seismically active planet. Another outpouring of studies from earlier this year showed how scientists could use InSight’s work to map the interior of another planet for the first time.

InSight’s recent marsquakes detections are a triumph for another reason. A thick layer of dust on the lander’s solar panels put the mission in a precarious position. NASA was expecting a whirlwind to come along and clean them off, but that hasn’t happen. To keep the lander operating at a high level, the InSight team came up with a clever way to clean some of the dust off by dribbling a bit of dirt onto the panels. It worked.

Scientists are still studying the most recent quake, but they’ve already figured out that the 4.2 quake from August came from 5,280 miles (8,500 kilometers) away, making it the most distant marsquake yet detected by InSight. The 4.1 originated from a mere 575 miles (925 kilometers) away.

The latest marsquakes data will help build our understanding of the interior of Mars. We know for sure the red planet is giving itself quite a few fair shakes.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Tuesday, April 7

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for April 7.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? Read on for all the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Informative commercial, for short
Answer: PSA

4A clue: Something you trace to draw a Thanksgiving turkey
Answer: HAND

5A clue: ___ Johnson, former Prime Minister of the U.K.
Answer: BORIS

6A clue: Opposite of include
Answer: OMIT

7A clue: Crosses (out)
Answer: XES

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: City with the Notre-Dame Cathedral
Answer: PARIS

2D clue: Bad mood
Answer: SNIT

3D clue: About eight minutes of the average half-hour sitcom
Answer: ADS

4D clue: Remote worker’s office, perhaps
Answer: HOME

5D clue: Word that can follow each group of circled letters (and hints at its shape)
Answer: BOX

Technologies

NASA’s Artemis II Breaks Record With Trip Around The Moon

Technologies

In Honor of the Artemis II Mission, Explore the Moon in Fortnite Now

You might not be able to see the moon the way the Artemis II team is, but there’s an educational Fortnite simulation that will get you onto the celestial body’s surface.

You may not be able to explore the vast majesty of space in the same way that the four-person crew of the Artemis II is, but you can still get an up-close-and-personal view of the moon… in Fortnite, at least.

While you may not be able to slingshot around Earth’s own lunar body, space enthusiasts can see a little bit of what the Artemis II crew is seeing by spending time on the Lunar Horizons Fortnite map right now. The map is a creative collaboration between Fortnite’s creator, Epic Games, and the European Space Agency. Lunar Horizons was released in 2024 after extensive testing and play from ESA trainee astronauts.

If you’re looking to learn more about our own orbiting body, the Lunar Horizons map is an educational simulation of the surface of the moon’s South Pole.

It blends game mechanics with learning, as players get to build up their own sterile lunar habitat bases, interact with ESA astronauts and roll around with robotic rovers as they discover informative plaques that contain information about the moon and international space agencies. There are still dangers to navigate, too — a solar storm may strike when you least expect it.

If you’re interested in exploring the moon, we’ve got all the information you need to join in on the Fortnite fun below. And if you’re looking for a more serious livestream during this momentous human achievement, tune into NASA’s feed here.

How to join the Moon Fortnite island while you follow the Artemis II mission

The Lunar Horizons Fortnite map is a great educational simulation that shares details about ESA’s work and catalogs information about humanity’s lunar research.

These three simple steps will get you up and running (or more accurately, taking slow leaps and bounds) on the surface of the Lunar Horizons Fortnite map:

Download Fortnite

If you haven’t played Fortnite before, but you want to check out this limited-time event, you’ll have to download the game. If you’re on PC, you can download Fortnite for free from the Epic Games Store. Console players can navigate the PlayStation Store, Microsoft Store or Nintendo eShop in order to download Fortnite on their devices.

Navigate the in-game menus until you reach the Search button

Once you’re in the game, scroll down past the different official Fortnite game modes and the Discover tab until you find the Search button.

Input the Lunar Horizons island code

In the search bar, you can input a map’s name or its distinct search code in order to find it in the map directory. You can search for the Lunar Horizons map or input the code 3207-0960-6428 to explore this map in time.

Correction, 3:35 p.m. PT: This story initially was in error about the features available in the Lunar Horizons map. There is no Artemis II-specific mission in Fortnite. Rather, the Lunar Horizons map is an educational simulation of part of the moon’s surface.