In May 2018, NASA will launch the Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, or InSight, mission. This project will drop a stationary lander on Martian soil with the goal of understanding what happened at the rocky planet’s very beginning.

“It’s a mission to map out the deep interior of Mars all the way down to the very center of the planet,” said W. Bruce Banerdt, the mission’s principal investigator at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. It will take detailed geophysical measurements to determine the thickness of the planet’s core, mantle and crust.

“It’s like using a microscope instead of looking at it from across the room,” he said.

While nestled on the ground, the InSight lander will listen for seismic activity and small vibrations — marsquakes.