APOD: Video: Perseverance Landing on Mars (2021 Feb 23)

[APOD Robot]

Video: Perseverance Landing on Mars

Explanation: What would it look like to land on Mars? To better monitor the instruments involved in the Entry, Decent, and Landing of the Perseverance Rover on Mars last week, cameras with video capability were included that have now returned their images. The featured 3.5-minute composite video begins with the opening of a huge parachute that dramatically slows the speeding spacecraft as it enters the Martian atmosphere. Next the heat shield is seen separating and falls ahead. As Perseverance descends, Mars looms large and its surface becomes increasingly detailed. At just past 2-minutes into the video, the parachute is released and Perseverance begins to land with dust-scattering rockets. Soon the Sky Crane takes over and puts Perseverance down softly, then quickly jetting away. The robotic Perseverance rover will now begin exploring ancient Jezero Crater, including a search for signs that life once existed on Earth's neighboring planet.

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[JohnD]

Gosh! Despite the highly technical and jargoned commentary, I found that very emotional! The crew had every right to let go, clap and dance when they knew that Perseverance was safely down. No steely-eyed missle man, me, and neither should they be! Well done!
John

[DL MARTIN]

Question:

Why is the Astronomy community willing to acknowledge that there is a 3.5 billion year old history regarding Mars, yet denies the same courtesy when referring to galaxies? For example, Andromeda's visual signature was generated 2 billion years ago yet is referenced as simply 2 billion light years away thus leaving the impression of temporal parity with present day Earth?
When I look at Andromeda I view it as an entity that existed 2 billion years ago in the same manner that the Mar's crater is entertained at 3.5.

[Guest]

Doesn't the skycrane fly away with the various cables? I don't see them dangling while the skycrane leaves.

[sillyworm 2]

Amazing.

[tomatoherd]

DL Martin:
first of all, Andromeda is 2+ MILLION light years away, not billion.
secondly, you might google the concept of 'simultaneity'.

[orin stepanek]

Question:

Why is the Astronomy community willing to acknowledge that there is a 3.5 billion year old history regarding Mars, yet denies the same courtesy when referring to galaxies? For example, Andromeda's visual signature was generated 2 billion years ago yet is referenced as simply 2 billion light years away thus leaving the impression of temporal parity with present day Earth?
When I look at Andromeda I view it as an entity that existed 2 billion years ago in the same manner that the Mar's crater is entertained at 3.5.

Andromeda ia about 2.4 Million years away! https://howfarawayisandromeda.neocities.org/

[orin stepanek]

I love this map or locations of our exploration sites!

[Chris Peterson]

Question:

Why is the Astronomy community willing to acknowledge that there is a 3.5 billion year old history regarding Mars, yet denies the same courtesy when referring to galaxies? For example, Andromeda's visual signature was generated 2 billion years ago yet is referenced as simply 2 billion light years away thus leaving the impression of temporal parity with present day Earth?
When I look at Andromeda I view it as an entity that existed 2 billion years ago in the same manner that the Mar's crater is entertained at 3.5.

Andromeda ia about 2.4 Million years away! https://howfarawayisandromeda.neocities.org/

Give it up. He's just too stupid to listen to answers.

[E Fish]

I loved that, with each successful stage, you could hear clapping in the background of the commentary. That a nice video. NASA really does a good job of distilling down to the essential parts for the viewing public.

[DL MARTIN]

Question:

What if we were to see life similar to ours on a planet in Andromeda. Would we classify it as existing in the present or something that existed 2 million+ years ago? As it stands now the unwashed public is left with the impression that the Andromeda seen nightly is current events. Well, now we step off the Earth and no sooner are we looking for fossils perhaps billions of years old on another entity - Mars. How acan Andromeda be described as awy while Mars is is being examined in the 'ago'?

[Chris Peterson]

Question:

What if we were to see life similar to ours on a planet in Andromeda. Would we classify it as existing in the present or something that existed 2 million+ years ago? As it stands now the unwashed public is left with the impression that the Andromeda seen nightly is current events. Well, now we step off the Earth and no sooner are we looking for fossils perhaps billions of years old on another entity - Mars. How acan Andromeda be described as awy while Mars is is being examined in the 'ago'?

We would classify it as existing as we observe it, when we observe it. We are observing Andromeda as a current event. Likewise for Mars. In the latter case, we are interacting with it. We are sending signals, and receiving responses. That there is a delay changes nothing.

[johnnydeep]

This is a truly awe inspiring and inspirational video! I saw it all "live" during the NASA briefing yesterday. What a beautifully executed and virtually flawless engineering achievement. Bravo, Humanity!

[Chemfarmer]

Unrelated: Isn't there a bit of what might be called 'friction" in space, that is, moving bodies encountering dust and even larger things that are not moving as fast or in the same direction as the body in question? And if that is true, wouldn't the speed with which any body orbits anything be gradually slowing, resulting in the body moving slightly closer over time? Wouldn't this imply that galaxies would be growing smaller, and even that earth is slowly getting closer to the sun?

[Chris Peterson]

Unrelated: Isn't there a bit of what might be called 'friction" in space, that is, moving bodies encountering dust and even larger things that are not moving as fast or in the same direction as the body in question? And if that is true, wouldn't the speed with which any body orbits anything be gradually slowing, resulting in the body moving slightly closer over time? Wouldn't this imply that galaxies would be growing smaller, and even that earth is slowly getting closer to the sun?

Bodies also encounter other bodies that are "going faster". That is, when a pair of bodies interact, one may gain energy and the other lose it. The total energy, of course, is conserved. To the extent that the effects of this would be detectable in a galaxy, you'd certainly be looking at a time period many times greater than the age of the Universe.

[Ann]

Question:

What if we were to see life similar to ours on a planet in Andromeda. Would we classify it as existing in the present or something that existed 2 million+ years ago? As it stands now the unwashed public is left with the impression that the Andromeda seen nightly is current events. Well, now we step off the Earth and no sooner are we looking for fossils perhaps billions of years old on another entity - Mars. How acan Andromeda be described as awy while Mars is is being examined in the 'ago'?

When I was 15 years old and saw Andromeda for the first time, I fantasized that there was a girl inside Andromeda that was much like me, and she was looking back at me. I wanted to wave at her.

I remembered that feeling and that wish, but a few years later I realized that if my wave at her had been a signal moving at the speed of light, it would take more than 2 million years for that signal to reach Andromeda. So if that girl was anything like me or like the kind of higher life forms that we know of on the Earth, she could most certainly not have a life span of 2 million years. So if she existed "now", and I sent a signal to her "now", she would be dead long, long before my signal reached her.

And if she somehow suspected that I existed "now", and sent a signal to me, it wouldn't reach me until after 2 million years into the Earth's future, when I most certainly would have been dead for a long, long time.

It's simple. There is no simultaneity in spacetime.

Accept it. At the very least, refrain from complaining about it on this site. Starship Asterisk* is not a consumer protection agency that you can turn to if you are unsatisfied with the tremendous unimaginable distances in space, and the inability of Earth and Earthlings to share the spacetime coordinates of other parts of the Milky Way, let alone the spacetime coordinates of other galaxies in the Universe.

Ann

[RAB Sr]

Hope one task for the helicopter is to seek ancient foot prints in the sediment. Otherwise dedusting the eqt will help. RAB