Elysium Planitia
Elysium Planitia is the flat equatorial plain where NASA's InSight lander listened to marsquakes from 2018 to 2022. Explore it in 3D at real scale.
- Location
- 4.5° N, 135.6° E
- Landed
- InSight, 26 November 2018
- Mission
- first study of the deep interior of Mars
- Discovery
- more than 1,300 marsquakes recorded
Elysium Planitia is a broad, flat plain near the Martian equator, and that is exactly why InSight landed there. The lander did not need interesting rocks. It needed a safe, smooth, sunny place to set a seismometer on the ground and listen.
From 2018 to 2022 InSight recorded more than a thousand marsquakes, including some caused by meteorite impacts. Its measurements let scientists work out the size of the Martian core and the thickness of the crust for the first time.
What to look for
- "Homestead hollow". InSight sat in a shallow, sand-filled old crater, chosen because the ground was smooth.
- Fresh craters. Some of the impacts InSight heard were later found from orbit as brand-new craters.
Driving Elysium Planitia in Trawers
The plain is ideal for long drives with few obstacles. It is also close to Gale Crater on the planetary scale, but at real distances the trip between them is still hundreds of kilometres.