A phorto opportunity on Mars

maycm · Post by **maycm** » Fri May 30, 2008 3:13 am

Not sure if anyone else is watching the latest Nasa explorer on Mard, but the Phoenix lander reached there this week.

During the landing, one of the orbiters took a picture of the lander as it parachuted towards it's landing. No mean feat in itself if you think about it, but when you see the picture, it's just a stunning achievement.

LINK

By the way, the crater in the background is nowhere near as close as it appears - its actually about 60 miles away.

major.tom · Post by **major.tom** » Fri May 30, 2008 5:37 am

You can tell how huge it is by the scale of the parachute. Very nice photo, Maycm. I enjoy space pics.

This happens to be today's photo on the Astronomy Picture of the Day:

https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

Post by **faceless** » Fri May 30, 2008 12:22 pm

now that's a big hole, or a very small satellite!