An out-of-this-world project has a big local tie.

This week, many people will be following the InSight Probe that landed on Mars.

Cornell University is playing a major role in the NASA mission: Professor Don Banfield is one of the investigators and science team members. The team will be studying the interior geology of the planet.

Cornell University professor Jonathan Lunine says it will give us a look inside the history of the planet.

“The coolest thing is that we’re going to get a look at the inside of Mars. And that will help us understand how Mars evolved with time; maybe it’ll explain for us why Mars lost its ability to support life early in its history,” said Lunine.

Banfield's job focuses on removing things like wind and pressure changes from the seismic records.