Tuesday, August 7, 2012


More pictures from Curiosity on Mars.  The picture on the left has the dust cover on, which protected the camera from dust kicked up by the landing.  On the right, the same view with the dust cover removed.

In the distance you can see Mount Sharp, Curiosity's ultimate destination.






















Below is a wide view of the landing zone with all the bits and pieces of the landing gear strewn all about on the Martian surface.  The picture was taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter satellite as it passed over the area. The black spots around the impact areas are darker soil exposed when the lighter soil and dust on top was knocked off by the impact of stuff like the sky crane, or the jets from the landing around Curiosity.

Here is another shot during the descent, but from a wider angle. The first enlargement is obviously the Curiosity lander still being slowed down by the chute.   NASA now can identify the heat shield in the lower picture, which they think was still air bourn at this point as there is no evidence of a dark impact area.


Turning it's cameras to the left, Curiosity and NASA's technicians were startled to get this view.

Oh not really.


2 comments:

  1. It is amazing what we can do :)

    Too bad our own planet is going to hell...

    ReplyDelete