Tornado Alley (PROG)

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Complete MSL Curiosity Descent - Full Quality Enhanced 1080p + Heat Shield impact

Published on Aug 21, 2012 by Luke Fitch

This is a full-resolution version of the NASA Curiosity rover descent to Mars, 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/multimedia/raw/?s=0&camera=MARDI

Fun fact: The first mission to Mars, Mariner 4 in 1965, returned a total of 634 kb of data, including 22 photos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZX5GRPnd4U [via/more at http://www.slashgear.com/curiosity-mars-descent-gets-1080p-video-23243727/ (with comment)]