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NASA’s InSight hopes to detect “marsquakes”, deploys seismometer on Mars
In another historic feat for NASA’s InSight lander, a seismometer has now been deployed on Mars, marking the first time a scientific instrument has been placed onto the surface of another planet. Once the craft’s team have things set up for readings, its instruments will begin measuring the internal vibrations of the red planet, hoping to ultimately learn about the activities and composition of its core and crust. InSight’s instruments will also study how powerful and frequent seismic activity is on Mars along with how often the surface is hit with meteorites. If we’re hoping to explore and possibly live there one day, this is all very important information to have.
After launching on May 5, 2018, aboard an Atlas rocket in California, InSight and its MarCO twin CubeSat companions traveled through deep space for around 6 months before landing on the Martian surface at 11:52 PST on November 26, 2018, an event watched live around the world, including a broadcast in Times Square, New York City. The planned mission for the craft is a little over 1 Martian year, i.e., about 2 Earth years, during which time it will aim to provide scientific data useful for understanding the processes that have shaped the rocky planets of our solar system. In other words, the things InSight learns about Mars will be directly relevant to our own planet as well.
InSight’s name is actually an acronym for “Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport”, each part being a reference to the specific science it will be conducting. There are several auxiliary instruments on board the lander that will assist or complement its main mission. However, there are 3 scientific instruments on the craft to help meet its objectives.
First, a seismometer named the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) will study seismic waves from the Martian surface to study the planet’s crust. When magma moves or meteorites hit, the instrument will detect the motion and gather information that will tell scientists about Mars’ temperature, pressure, and composition. This is the instrument featured in the lander’s recent photo.
Second, a heat flow probe named the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Probe (HP3) will burrow more than 10 feet into the surface to measure the heat still flowing out of Mars, giving clues about how it evolved and whether Earth and Mars are made of the same materials. Finally, a radio science instrument named the Rotation and Interior Structure Experiment (RISE) will measure tiny changes in the location of InSight to measure Mars’ “wobbles” on its axis. This movement data will provide information about the planet’s core.
InSight is conducting its experiments on the western side of the Elysium Planitia of Mars, a smooth, flat region near the planet’s equator. The location was chosen from a pool of 22 candidate landing sites, all within Elysium, evaluated during several workshops from 2013-2015. The decision was made based on Elysium’s proximity to the equator (maximum sun for InSight’s solar arrays), low elevation (plenty of atmospheric space for its landing), lack of rocks and slopes (flat enough for the instruments to deploy and work properly), and the subsurface structure (so the digging instruments could burrow easily).
Next, InSight will finish setting up its remaining instruments and begin its full science mission. We can expect to continue receiving image updates from the lander as more milestones are reached. Here’s an extra bonus if you want to feel like you’re “there” with InSight: NASA’s “Experience InSight” interactive web page lets you control a virtual version of the lander in a Martian environment. You can deploy its solar panels, move around a few of its instruments, or just learn about the various parts that make up the mission. There are additionally two virtual cameras, just like the ones onboard the actual craft, enabling you to watch the movements you’re making, just like InSight’s team sees from their control center.
Watch the below video for a recap of InSight’s landing:
Tesla engineers deflected calls from Apple on a daily basis while the tech giant was developing its now-defunct electric vehicle program, which was known as “Project Titan.”
Back in 2022 and 2023, Apple was developing an EV in a top-secret internal fashion, hoping to launch it by 2028 with a fully autonomous driving suite.
However, Apple bailed on the project in early 2024, as Project Titan abandoned the project in an email to over 2,000 employees. The company had backtracked its expectations for the vehicle on several occasions, initially hoping to launch it with no human driving controls and only with an autonomous driving suite.
Apple canceling its EV has drawn a wide array of reactions across tech
It then planned for a 2028 launch with “limited autonomous driving.” But it seemed to be a bit of a concession at that point; Apple was not prepared to take on industry giants like Tesla.
Wedbush’s Dan Ives noted in a communication to investors that, “The writing was on the wall for Apple with a much different EV landscape forming that would have made this an uphill battle. Most of these Project Titan engineers are now all focused on AI at Apple, which is the right move.”
Apple did all it could to develop a competitive EV that would attract car buyers, including attempting to poach top talent from Tesla.
In a new podcast interview with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, it was revealed that Apple had been calling Tesla engineers nonstop during its development of the now-defunct project. Musk said the engineers “just unplugged their phones.”
Musk said in full:
“They were carpet bombing Tesla with recruiting calls. Engineers just unplugged their phones. Their opening offer without any interview would be double the compensation at Tesla.”
Interestingly, Apple had acquired some ex-Tesla employees for its project, like Senior Director of Engineering Dr. Michael Schwekutsch, who eventually left for Archer Aviation.
Tesla took no legal action against Apple for attempting to poach its employees, as it has with other companies. It came after EV rival Rivian in mid-2020, after stating an “alarming pattern” of poaching employees was noticed.
There are a lot of Tesla bulls out there who have astronomical expectations for the company, especially as its arm of reach has gone well past automotive and energy and entered artificial intelligence and robotics.
However, some of the most bullish Tesla investors believe the company could become worth $100 trillion, and CEO Elon Musk does not believe that number is completely out of the question, even if it sounds almost ridiculous.
To put that number into perspective, the top ten most valuable companies in the world — NVIDIA, Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, TSMC, Meta, Saudi Aramco, Broadcom, and Tesla — are worth roughly $26 trillion.
Will Tesla join the fold? Predicting a triple merger with SpaceX and xAI
Cathie Wood of ARK Invest believes the number is reasonable considering Tesla’s long-reaching industry ambitions:
“…in the world of AI, what do you have to have to win? You have to have proprietary data, and think about all the proprietary data he has, different kinds of proprietary data. Tesla, the language of the road; Neuralink, multiomics data; nobody else has that data. X, nobody else has that data either. I could see $100 trillion. I think it’s going to happen because of convergence. I think Tesla is the leading candidate [for $100 trillion] for the reason I just said.”
Musk said late last year that all of his companies seem to be “heading toward convergence,” and it’s started to come to fruition. Tesla invested in xAI, as revealed in its Q4 Earnings Shareholder Deck, and SpaceX recently acquired xAI, marking the first step in the potential for a massive umbrella of companies under Musk’s watch.
SpaceX officially acquires xAI, merging rockets with AI expertise
Now that it is happening, it seems Musk is even more enthusiastic about a massive valuation that would swell to nearly four-times the value of the top ten most valuable companies in the world currently, as he said on X, the idea of a $100 trillion valuation is “not impossible.”
It’s not impossible
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 6, 2026
Tesla is not just a car company. With its many projects, including the launch of Robotaxi, the progress of the Optimus robot, and its AI ambitions, it has the potential to continue gaining value at an accelerating rate.
Musk’s comments show his confidence in Tesla’s numerous projects, especially as some begin to mature and some head toward their initial stages.
Elon Musk
Celebrating SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy Tesla Roadster launch, seven years later (Op-Ed)
Seven years later, the question is no longer “What if this works?” It’s “How far does this go?”
When Falcon Heavy lifted off in February 2018 with Elon Musk’s personal Tesla Roadster as its payload, SpaceX was at a much different place. So was Tesla. It was unclear whether Falcon Heavy was feasible at all, and Tesla was in the depths of Model 3 production hell.
At the time, Tesla’s market capitalization hovered around $55–60 billion, an amount critics argued was already grossly overvalued. SpaceX, on the other hand, was an aggressive private launch provider known for taking risks that traditional aerospace companies avoided.
The Roadster launch was bold by design. Falcon Heavy’s maiden mission carried no paying payload, no government satellite, just a car drifting past Earth with David Bowie playing in the background. To many, it looked like a stunt. For Elon Musk and the SpaceX team, it was a bold statement: there should be some things in the world that simply inspire people.
Inspire it did, and seven years later, SpaceX and Tesla’s results speak for themselves.
Today, Tesla is the world’s most valuable automaker, with a market capitalization of roughly $1.54 trillion. The Model Y has become the best-selling car in the world by volume for three consecutive years, a scenario that would have sounded insane in 2018. Tesla has also pushed autonomy to a point where its vehicles can navigate complex real-world environments using vision alone.
And then there is Optimus. What began as a literal man in a suit has evolved into a humanoid robot program that Musk now describes as potential Von Neumann machines: systems capable of building civilizations beyond Earth. Whether that vision takes decades or less, one thing is evident: Tesla is no longer just a car company. It is positioning itself at the intersection of AI, robotics, and manufacturing.
SpaceX’s trajectory has been just as dramatic.
The Falcon 9 has become the undisputed workhorse of the global launch industry, having completed more than 600 missions to date. Of those, SpaceX has successfully landed a Falcon booster more than 560 times. The Falcon 9 flies more often than all other active launch vehicles combined, routinely lifting off multiple times per week.
Falcon 9 has ferried astronauts to and from the International Space Station via Crew Dragon, restored U.S. human spaceflight capability, and even stepped in to safely return NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams when circumstances demanded it.
Starlink, once a controversial idea, now dominates the satellite communications industry, providing broadband connectivity across the globe and reshaping how space-based networks are deployed. SpaceX itself, following its merger with xAI, is now valued at roughly $1.25 trillion and is widely expected to pursue what could become the largest IPO in history.
And then there is Starship, Elon Musk’s fully reusable launch system designed not just to reach orbit, but to make humans multiplanetary. In 2018, the idea was still aspirational. Today, it is under active development, flight-tested in public view, and central to NASA’s future lunar plans.
In hindsight, Falcon Heavy’s maiden flight with Elon Musk’s personal Tesla Roadster was never really about a car in space. It was a signal that SpaceX and Tesla were willing to think bigger, move faster, and accept risks others wouldn’t.
The Roadster is still out there, orbiting the Sun. Seven years later, the question is no longer “What if this works?” It’s “How far does this go?”
Tesla engineers deflected calls from this tech giant’s now-defunct EV project
Tesla to a $100T market cap? Elon Musk’s response may shock you
