This is a high-resolution still image, part of a video taken by several cameras as NASA’s Perseverance rover touched down on Mars. A camera aboard the descent stage captured this shot. NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA has released the hotly-anticipated video footage captured during the Perseverance Mars rover’s landing on the Red Planet last week.
Perseverance, the largest extraterrestrial rover NASA has ever built, safely landed in the Jezero Crater of Mars on Thursday. The rover was equipped with six sophisticated cameras and two microphones designed to record sound from another planet for the first time.
The three-minute video unveiled Monday afternoon includes footage taken by cameras on the descent stage and the rover itself. One camera on the descent stage facing the sky captured a perfect parachute opening right after Perseverance entered Mars’ atmosphere. Another camera facing down captured how the rover was lowered by the descent stage’s cables. As it approached Mars surface, the viewfinder fogged up as the rover’s landing force blew surface dusts into the air.
Your front-row seat to my Mars landing is here. Watch how we did it.#CountdownToMars pic.twitter.com/Avv13dSVmQ
— NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) February 22, 2021
Over the weekend, the Perseverance rover sent back a number of photos of never-before-seen view of what it looked like to land on Mars, including a picture of the rover’s top taken by a camera aboard the descent platform shortly before its touchdown, closeups of Mars’ surface and one of Perseverance’s six wheels taken by cameras on the rover’s body, and a rare bird’s-eye view snapped by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter of the moment when Perseverance’s parachute opened.
This high-resolution image shows one of the six wheels aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover, which landed on Feb.18, 2021. NASA/JPL-Caltech
This is the first high-resolution, color image to be sent back by the Hazard Cameras (Hazcams) on the underside NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover after its landing on Feb. 18, 2021. NASA/JPL-Caltech
The descent stage holding NASA’s Perseverance rover can be seen falling thorough the Martian atmosphere, its parachute trailing behind, in this image taken on Feb. 18, 2021 by the HiRISE camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. An ellipse indicates where Perseverance eventually touched down within Jezero Crater. NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
