The air is certainly thick enough to fill a parachute. On May 25th, 2008, the HiRISE camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter acquired this dramatic oblique image of its the arrival of its sister probe from NASA, the Phoenix Lander, descending on its parachute. Phoenix and its parachute can be barely seen in the larger image with 10 km wide crater informally called "Heimdall" in the background. Although it appears that Phoenix is descending into the crater, it is actually about 20 kilometers in front of the crater. Given the position and pointing angle of MRO, Phoenix is at about 13 km above the surface, just a few seconds after the parachute opened. (NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)
 KatanaLite137 · Sun Jun 22, 2008 @ 12:12am · 0 Comments |
