Nasa InSight: We have lift off!

Image source, NASA/Bill Ingalls

Image caption, Nasa's InSight spacecraft has lifted off into space!

Nasa has sent a spacecraft on an incredible mission to Mars!

The lander is called InSight, and it will explore parts of the Red Planet that have never been researched before.

It achieved lift off at 4:05am in California (that's 12:05pm our time).

The rocket travelled faster than the speed of sound as it blasted off into space.

Once it has landed on the planet, it will carry out a mission that will last one Mars year (which is roughly two Earth years).

You can find out everything you need to know about Insight here.

Video caption, InSight mission to blast off to Mars

Why Mars?

This is the first time that the Red Planet will have its interior investigated.

Image source, NASA/JPL-CALTECH

Image caption, An artist's impression of how rocky planets like Mars, Mercury, Venus and the Earth might have formed. The white area shows the core, the red section is the mantle and the grey section is the crust. InSight is set to discover more about how these planets were created.

Mars is considered to be a perfect planet to study because it is not too big and not too small - scientists believe it could hold a lot of answers to how other planets in our solar system, like Mercury and Venus, were formed.

InSight will study three parts of Mars - the crust, the mantle and the core - by recording its earthquakes. How cool is that?