A Spacecraft Photographed Another Spacecraft Landing on Mars

Added: 2026-05-21

[00:00:00]One orbiting spacecraft caught [music] another one parachuting onto Mars mid-descent. That bright speck in the inset is the Phoenix lander falling toward the Martian surface under a parachute photographed by the HiRISE [music] camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter from 760 km away.

[00:00:21]It looks like Phoenix is dropping straight into Heimdal crater, a 10-km-wide scar on Mars's north polar [music] plains, but it's actually descending 20 km in front of it.

[00:00:33]Later, the orbiter spotted Phoenix on the ground, its heat shield and parachute [music] scattered nearby.

[00:00:40]One robot found another robot on another world.

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