NASA provides you with “front row seats” to the Perseverance Mars landing

The NASA Perseverance Rover safely landed on Mars on 18th February 2021. But if you didn’t manage to stay up at 3.15am for their broadcast, don’t worry! NASA’s got you covered.

They’ve released footage showing its Perseverance rover landing on Mars after plunging through the planet’s atmosphere. The footage is crystal clear, showing Mars’ terrain and colour—and it made me as a viewer feel like I was there with the rover.

“I can watch these videos for hours, and keep seeing new stuff every time,” said Allen Chen, who is the mission’s entry, landing, and descent lead.

Perseverance’s bundle carried four cameras to capture the landing sequence—one facing upward, one facing downward, and two on each side of the rover. The footage starts with the Perseverance’s parachute deploy, which helped slow its descent. Its heat shield is then separated to allow the camera facing downward to give people their “first look” at Mars’ surface.

As the rover gets closer to the surface, you get to see more details of the planet’s surface—including craters, hills, the red dirt and some valleys. Perseverance then landed via “Skycrane”—which fired rocket thrusters to slow its descent near the surface.

If watching the landing isn’t enough, NASA also released a sound recording of the wind on Mars. The noise was recorded on Perseverance itself.

The rover landed at Mars’ Jezero Crater. Scientists believe the area was once flooded with water and was home to an ancient river delta—and it could be one of the most ideal places to find evidence of ancient microbial life.

But it isn’t just NASA that has Mars on their mind. China’s Tianwen-1 spacecraft has now reached Mars’ orbit, but they’re scheduling its descent in May. And the UAE’s Hope Probe will orbit Mars to study the Martian atmosphere, but it won’t land on the surface.

[ SOURCE, IMAGE SOURCE ]

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