Monday, August 6, 2012

Curiosity Lands on Mars (Video)

A NASA satellite was perfectly positioned over Mars to snap a
picture of Curiosity as it parachuted to the surface of the red planet.
Photo: NASA/JPL-CALTECH

What can humans do with $2.5 billion and a decade of hard work? Some pretty amazing things. After eight months of travel across 354 million miles of space, the NASA rover Curiosity has landed safely on Mars.

The video clip below shows the anxious jet propulsion lab team during the last two minutes of the flight, along with animated video images depicting the technical elements needed to safely land the craft.



You can view actual footage of Mars as seen from Curiosity during the final minute of descent here. While the video content is not particularly compelling, the idea that it was beamed back from a rover that landed on Mars less than 24 hours ago is stunning.

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