NASA’s InSight Mars lander took this final selfie on April 24, 2022, the 1,211th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The lander is covered with far more dust than it was in its first selfie, taken in December 2018, not long after landing – or in its second selfie, composed of images taken in March and April 2019.
The arm now needs to move several times in order to capture a full selfie. Because InSight’s dusty solar panels are producing less power, the team will soon put the lander’s robotic arm in its resting position (called the “retirement pose”) for the last time in May 2022.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Image and info via NASA
Scents of Science 
May 25, 2022 at 5:10 pm
this faraway little problem points to a much larger and serious problem here on earth.
–> the accumulation of dust on the solar panels can reduce output by 30%, while cleaning them uses about 10 billion gallons of water a year.
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