Gallery | Mars Curiosity - Week 1 | What it takes to land on Mars
The HiRISE camera can see Martian objects smaller than a meter, and was able to spot the hardware that the rover needed to land safely on the surface (click the links to see them in higher-res):
Upper left: The heat shield ejected after safely protecting the whole lander package in its initial descent through the atmosphere.
Upper right: The splash pattern from the sky crane; the rocket-powered crane that hovered over the Martian surface, lowered the rover to the ground, then blasted away. The crane itself can be seen as a dot in the full-res picture.
Lower left: The parachute (lower left) and the back shell that attached it to the lander package. The parachute slowed the rover and sky crane from super- to sub-sonic speeds.
Lower right: The rover itself, barely resolved, but proof that humans are once again by proxy on the surface of another world.
Image credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Original Image
Blog post
Upper left: The heat shield ejected after safely protecting the whole lander package in its initial descent through the atmosphere.
Upper right: The splash pattern from the sky crane; the rocket-powered crane that hovered over the Martian surface, lowered the rover to the ground, then blasted away. The crane itself can be seen as a dot in the full-res picture.
Lower left: The parachute (lower left) and the back shell that attached it to the lander package. The parachute slowed the rover and sky crane from super- to sub-sonic speeds.
Lower right: The rover itself, barely resolved, but proof that humans are once again by proxy on the surface of another world.
Image credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Original Image
Blog post
