Day: December 20, 2022

It could be the end of the red dusty line for NASA’s InSight lander, which has fallen silent after four years on Mars.

The lander’s power levels have been dwindling for months because of all the dust coating its solar panels. Ground controllers at California’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory knew the end was near, but NASA reported that InSight unexpectedly didn’t respond to communications from Earth on Sunday.

“It’s assumed InSight may have reached the end of its operations,” NASA said late Monday, adding that its last communication was Thursday. “It’s unknown what prompted the change in its energy.”

The team will keep trying to contact InSight, just in case.

InSight landed on Mars in 2018 and was the first spacecraft to document a marsquake. It detected more than 1,300 quakes with its French-built seismometer, including several caused by meteoroid strikes. The most recent marsquake sensed by InSight, earlier this year, left the ground shaking for at least six hours, according to NASA.

The seismometer readings shed light on Mars’ interior.

Just last week, scientists revealed that InSight scored another first, capturing a Martian dust devil not just in pictures, but in sound as well. In a stroke of luck, the whirling column of dust blew directly over the lander in 2021 when its microphone was on.

The lander’s other main instrument, however, encountered nothing but trouble.

A German digging device — meant to measure the temperature of Mars’ interior — never made it deeper than half a meter (a couple of feet), well short of the intended 5 meters (16 feet). NASA declared it dead nearly two years ago.

InSight recently sent back one last selfie, shared by NASA via Twitter on Monday.

“My power’s really low, so this may be the last image I can send,” the team wrote on InSight’s behalf. “Don’t worry about me though: my time here has been both productive and serene. If I can keep talking to my mission team, I will — but I’ll be signing off here soon. Thanks for staying with me.”

NASA still has two active rovers on Mars: Curiosity, roaming the surface since 2012, and Perseverance, which arrived early last year.

Perseverance is in the midst of creating a sample depot; the plan is to leave 10 tubes of rock cores on the Martian surface as a backup to samples on the rover itself. NASA plans to bring some of these samples back to Earth in a decade, in its longtime search for signs of ancient microscopic life on Mars.

Perseverance also has a companion: a mini helicopter named Ingenuity. It just completed its 37th flight and has now logged more than an hour of Martian flight time.

Source: Voice of America

Quarterly newsletter to keep WFP colleagues at country, regional and global level up to date with latest developments on South-South cooperation

The quarterly newsletter provides WFP colleagues working at the country, regional and global levels with a regular update on South-South cooperation and provides a vehicle to showcase and share South-South project experiences.

The following articles are included in this edition:

The Rome Based Agencies, JICA, and IFNA explore SSTC collaboration on Home Grown School Feeding as Follow-Up to the Global South-South Development Expo

Update: Second PRO-CoE Directors dialogue

Takeaways from the SSTC Corporate Survey and the Informal Update with the Executive Board

SSTC Unit Holds Corporate Results Framework SSTC Indicator Webinar

SSTC News: SSTC Champion Card Series and the South-South Match.com Knowledge Platform

WFP’s SSTC Efforts Highlighted in the Secretary-General Report on SSTC and Asian Journal of Peacebuilding

WFP China CoE Jointly Organizes a Seminar on Post-harvest Loss Management for National Food Security

WFP China CoE Jointly Organizes Workshop on Climate Smart Mechanization for Transforming Agriculture

Ghana Co-Organizes a Workshop on Smallholder Market Access in Ghana with WFP China CoE

WFP Centre of Excellence Brazil Conducts Virtual Exchanges on School Feeding Programmes with Portuguese-Speaking Countries

WFP Centre of Excellence Brazil Hosted a Side-Event for 50th Session of the Committee on World Food Security on Virtual Study Visit Support

CERFAM’s Participation at the Global South-South Development Expo 2022 Highlighting Leveraging SSTC to Foster Learning and Knowledge Sharing in Africa

China-Africa Collaboration to Foster Knowledge Sharing and Good Practice Dissemination to Improve Rice Value Chains

Strengthening Cameroon’s Capacity on SSTC Initiatives and Home-Grown School Feeding

Building Sustainable, Resilient and Nutritious Agri-food Systems in Ecuador

Haiti-Benin Exchange of Best Practices in School Feeding

Democratic Republic of Congo Conducted an Exchange Visit to Burundi to Learn about Post-harvest

Management and Commercialization Techniques

Leveraging India’s Expertise in Millet Mainstreaming in Asia and Africa

Cambodian Government Conducts Knowledge Exchange with Thailand to Learn about the School Lunch Programme

WFP India Country Office Held a Workshop on Updating the SSTC Strategy (2019-2023)

SSTC Unit in PRO with RBB Conducted a South-South Review in Timor-Leste

Source World Food Programme