NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter just snapped the scene of the crime: all the pieces of the Entry Descent Landing system that worked flawlessly together to safely put Curiosity on the surface of Mars.
The image was taken by MRO’s High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera, 24 hours after the landing.
You can see it all: the heat shield, the back shell, the parachute and finally the sky crane, which crashed hard after the umbilical cords were cut with guillotines fired by pyrotechnic devices.
So it's not bad enough that we are trashing our own planet, we have to drop our rubbish all over Mars too ! I hope it's all biodegradable!
If you didn't get the memo..... there are a lot of planets out there. Some wreckage the size of a car is worth the scientific endeavour to further our knowledge of the Universe.
bio - what bio? there is no bio on mars that we yet know of.
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Im no scientist, but if it was biodegradable, would that work in Space?
Aye! and when you are up there with a "Houston? We have a problem" Scenario, you'll be glad there are some spare parts to work with...
dont be silly - it has asbestos fireblankets...
I wish they were able to place a camera on the planet first and filmed the arrival of the curiosity. It would be so cool to see it from the perspective of the ground.
+1
If we are lucky the Martians might upload a video to YouTube for us.
Hopefully they don't do what we did when Skylab crash landed... sending the owner a fine for littering!
bio- what bio ? their is no bio on mars that we yet know of.
Well done humanity, we've now managed to litter on mars as well!