Watch the Descent of Curiosity in Stop Motion Animation: The View from the Mars Rover

The Mars rover Curiosity carried a Descent Imager (essentially a glorified HD color camera), and according to Planetary.org, it started shooting images at a rate of 4.5 frames per second upon its descent. We’ll eventually get access to high-res images (1600 by 1200 pixels). But, in the meantime, Curiosity has already beamed back 297 thumbnail images that have been stitched into a stop animation video, giving you another look at the dramatic landing. The action starts with Curiosity losing its heat shield and ends with it touching down on Mars. How cool is that?


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Comments (4)
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  • joe says:

    this is terrible. first we get 20 seconds of meaningless text. then pics that are booooorrrrrinnnnngggg.

  • simon says:

    Joe, I can see how the video may look boring if you don’t understand the “meaningless text”.

    This is amazing footage.

  • julio says:

    the guys send a rover to Mars and then somebody describes it as “boooooorrrriiiingggg?” Is this serious?

  • Kim says:

    I liked this and the dang thing cannot be removed from my FB page nor will it move. Remains static. I want to unlike it here and unable to do that as well. It is acting spammy on my FB wall and this has never happened. Annoying.

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