InSight is sending photos home.

Looks a bit like Texas.

This is the view across Elysium Planitia, the vast lava plain near the equator of Mars, where Nasa’s InSight lander touched down after a hair-raising descent on Monday. The probe snapped the image of the desolate landscape as the dust thrown up by its arrival was still settling around it.

Over the coming days, InSight will take more photos of the landing site and send them back to Earth, where scientists will use them to decide where the probe should place its instruments.

Isn’t it strange that as a species we’re clever enough to do this, yet we still elect a Donald Trump president? Or we go on a hajj and get trampled to death or we stone girls to death for rejecting an arranged marriage or we let priests molest children for decade after decade.

H/t Acolyte of Sagan