A newly released image snapped by a NASA satellite orbiting Mars, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, shows in great detail the landing spot, or spots, of the various pieces of the Mars Curiosity Rover and its landing equipment following their descent to the surface of the Red Planet on Monday.
The rover itself touched down in-tact, and the compontent parts of its landing craft separated as intended, breaking away as the rover was lowered from a hovering robotic “sky-crane” onto a shallow area of the Martian landscape known as Gale Crater by a nearby mountain, Mount Sharp.
As NASA explains about the annotated image:
“The heat shield was the first piece to hit the ground, followed by the back shell attached to the parachute, then the rover itself touched down, and finally, after cables were cut, the sky crane flew away to the northwest and crashed. Relatively dark areas in all four spots are from disturbances of the bright dust on Mars, revealing the darker material below the surface dust.”
NASA has been releasing a steady stream of images taken of and by the rover since its landing on Monday. See them here on NASA’s official Mars Science Laboratory webpage. Also see the best of the lot in TPM’s slideshow.
