As we all expected one of the Mars satellites imaged the area where Curiosity landed in greater detail. The image above shows 39 centimeters per pixel (about 15.3 inches per pixel).
On this image everything we send to descent on Mars is visible.
The rover herself is visible in the middle of the picture. The heat shield is to the right of her and the back shell and parachute are to her left. Above her to the left has the sky crane crashed into the surface.
The Curiosity rover is approximately 1.500 meters (4,900 feet) away from the heat shield and about 615 meters (2,020 feet)away from the parachute and back shell. The area where the sky crane crashed into the Martian soil is about 650 meters (2,100 feet) away from Curiosity.
The High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera captured this image about 24 hours after landing. The parts of Curiosity’s descent vehicle have disturbed the bright dust of the surface revealing the darker material below the surface dust. The image is like a view out of an airplane window.
Also visible is the disturbed soil around Curiosity where the sky crane thrusters jetted the soil up. The engines have dotted the soil with a symmetrical double pattern. This pattern looks like an arrow pointing to Curiosity.
To shoot this picture the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter executed a special manoeuvre. Normally the MRO will make a roll of 30-degrees, for this image a roll of 41-degrees was made. MRO rolled towards the west and towards the sun. Looking into the sun did increases visible scattering by atmospheric dust, and also enlarges the amount of atmosphere the orbiter had to look through. Both reduce the sharpness of the image.
Future images will show the hardware in greater detail.
All the HiRISE images of the descent are available here
Leave Your Response