Astronomy Picture of the Day - Video: Perseverance Landing on Mars

APOD.NASA.gov ^ | 23 Feb, 2021 | Video Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech, Mars 2020 Mission Team

[MtnClimber]

Explanation: What would it look like to land on Mars? To better monitor the instruments involved in the Entry, Decent, and Landing of the Perseverance Rover on Mars last week, cameras with video capability were included that have now returned their images. The featured 3.5-minute composite video begins with the opening of a huge parachute that dramatically slows the speeding spacecraft as it enters the Martian atmosphere. Next the heat shield is seen separating and falls ahead. As Perseverance descends, Mars looms large and its surface becomes increasingly detailed. At just past 2-minutes into the video, the parachute is released and Perseverance begins to land with dust-scattering rockets. Soon the Sky Crane takes over and puts Perseverance down softly, then quickly jetting away. The robotic Perseverance rover will now begin exploring ancient Jezero Crater, including a search for signs that life once existed on Earth's neighboring planet.

[MtnClimber]

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[MtnClimber]

This is a photo from the landing. A video is at the posting link.

[MtnClimber]

Pinging the APOD list.

🪐 🌟 🌌

[Steely Tom]

After watching the video it’s easy to see how so much debris ended up inside the wheels, which I was wondering about yesterday.

[HighSierra5]

JPL. The shining star of California. They’re the best in the world.

[twyn1]

Excellent!

[ETL]

Here's the current position of Mars in the night sky from my latitude in New York City. It's a fairly bright orange "star-like" dot roughly 1/4 of the sky west of the Moon tonight. Tomorrow night, the Moon will have moved a bit further east of the Moon than it is tonight.

[ETL]

Oops!

Make that, Tomorrow night, the Moon will have moved a bit further east of MARS than it is tonight.

[ETL]

As you can (hopefully) see on the chart, which I've enlarged below, Mars is currently 1.4 AUs from the Earth.(AU = Astronomical Unit)

An AU is the average distance between the Earth and Sun, or 92.5 million miles.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

[Paul R.]

Amazing vid(s)!

[SuperLuminal]

Dang!
That means there is a Walmart that has nowhere for the shoplifters to run to and hide...

[MtnClimber]

Where in NYC do you go to get a clear view of the sky?

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

You can see stars in New York, all six of them!

(Sayes the man in Kansas...)

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Goodness! Red Dirt!

The surface of of Mars looks like Georgia without the kudzu, cotton, and pine trees!

[Jolla]

JPL. The shining star of California. They’re the best in the world.

Watching the landing was really great, I smiled big when I saw Cal Tech on the wall.

[ETL]

Where in NYC do you go to get a clear view of the sky?

The 'Great Lawn' in Central Park, for one. I just last month moved to a new apartment a mere block from CP, 2 blocks from where millionaire commie John Lennon lived and died. You get an excellent view of the sky from that large open area, as well as a decent number of stars. Lots more than most people might think. Been observing there for over 20 years. Plus the planets are usually bright enough to be visible from darn near anywhere. Although it's been 4-5 years, me and some friends used to set up scopes there and let people look as we answer their questions, for free of course. During the day the lawn is used for softball and/or picnicking.

The Great Lawn is pretty much dead center on the map below, to the left (or west) of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And just below or south of that large body of water (the Reservoir)

Looking North (Met Art Museum on right)

Looking South (Met Mus on left)

Looking south

Again looking South

[MtnClimber]

Art Garfunkel said people should not go there after dark in the song “New York”.

[ETL]

In the long past that was definitely true. Get the heck out at sunset. However, since the Giuliani days, the city and the park have been very much safer places. That is, until relatively recently, when Comrade Bill “Black Lives Matter” Di Assio took over.

[Red Badger]

Where’s da flag at?..............................