Where did NASA’s InSight lander touch down on Mars in November 2018?

NASA’s InSight lander touched down in Elysium Planitia on Mars on 26 November 2018.

Elysium Planitia is a broad, relatively smooth plain near the Martian equator. NASA selected it because a flat landing area reduced hazards and because the site offered a useful setting for studying the planet’s interior rather than dramatic surface geology.

InSight carried a seismometer, a heat-flow probe, and instruments for measuring the lander’s environment. Its investigations detected marsquakes and helped scientists estimate the sizes and boundaries of Mars’s crust, mantle, and core.

Elysium Planitia is distinct from Jezero crater, where Perseverance landed, and Gale crater, where Curiosity landed. InSight’s heat-flow probe struggled to dig as deeply as planned because the soil behaved unexpectedly, but the mission still returned important seismic and interior data.