Complete Mars Curiosity Descent - Full Quality Enhanced HD 1080p Landing + Heat Shield impact

This is a full-resolution version of the NASA Curiosity rover descent to Mars and landing, taken by the MARDI descent imager. As of August 20, all but a dozen 1600x1200 frames have been uploaded from the rover, and those missing were interpolated using thumbnail data. The result was applied a heavy noise reduction, color balance, and sharpening for best visibility.

The video plays at 15fps, or 3x realtime. The heat shield impacts in the lower left frame at 0:21, and is shown enlarged at the end of the video. Image source: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimed...

High resolution composite image of source photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pixiebat... (Pixiebat)

• Category

  Science & Technology

[indoguju]

Why would anyone dislike this... Humans are amazing...

[Anubis78250]

We don't get "raw footage" of any of this stuff.

In a sense everything NASA gives us is "fake".

All of it is touched up like a cosmetic's model in a magazine.

This is just as "fake" as those.

No, I don't believe this is "faked" as in they never landed a rover on mars, I do however believe this video is "faked" in terms of "altered".

[connor129s]

Very interesting, really appreciate the answer. Thanks mate :) Maybe if the instruments malfunction and the camera becomes the only working thing they may decide to relay some video.

It would be quicker for a 720p video, I mean it does take awhile but if the rover is in operation for 20 years.. I don't see why they wouldn't show us some video in the future sometime.

But ty

[PUSHA304]

Simply AMAZING!!! When you think how far away mars is and we can get footage this good and photos that are so clear is remarkable. It he universe holds all the answers to all the questions we have and this is another step towards finding them. If only we could see what voyager 1 and voyager 2 have seen on their journey as clear as this would be unreal.

[n3tkUt]

NASA can transfer data at a maximum of 256Kbps (average is lower) between Earth and its Martian relay satellite, Odyssey. 1080p MXP video is 24Mbps, that's around 1.4GB of video per minute.

Not accounting for the time it would take to upload data from the rover to the relay satellite, it would take 13+ hours to transfer one minute of 1080p video back to Earth. They could compress the video a bit, but it would still be a huge strain on resources, photos are just a better option at this time.

[kallor king]

awsome

[TrappingWithEdgar]

Was A satellite Recording this?

[canyonblue737]

That is actual photos taken from Curiosity that were then put in order and played back as a video at accelerated rate. That was the real thing.

[TrappingWithEdgar]

This Is 3D Animation Right?

[connor129s]

how long? just wondering. Or have you not got a clue lol