NASA scientists have unveiled first-of-a-kind home movies of last week's' daredevil Mars rover landing, vividly showing its supersonic parachute inflation over the red planet and a rocket-powered hovercraft lowering the science lab on wheels to the surface. Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA associate administrator for science, called seeing the footage "the closest you can get to landing on Mars without putting on a pressure suit." "These videos, and these images are the stuff of our dreams," Al Chen, head of the descent and landing team, told reporters. The surface of Mars directly below NASA's Mars Perseverance rover is seen using the Rover Down-Look Camera. The only previous moving footage produced of a spacecraft during a Mars landing was a comparatively crude video shot from beneath the previous rover, Curiosity, during its descent to the planet's surface in 2012.

Source: Otago Daily Times February 23, 2021 01:41 UTC