Video of the Curiosity Landing

(Edit: I’ve replaced the original video with a much better one. The original can still be viewed here, but I don’t know why you want to.)

Today being Wednesday, we would normally have carried on with the next chapter of our little textbook. But it’s still summer, and humanity’s got this new car-sized robot on Mars, so I thought I’d share another video. It’s small and grainy awesome. (Try watching it in fullscreen mode.

For more context on what’s actually happening here (hint: the big thing that flies off at the beginning is a heat shield), you can check out Seven Minutes of Terror (about Curiosity’s insane landing sequence).  Or you can watch this video, which combines animation and actual audio.