NASA shares first video and audio, new images from Mars

The images will help NASA prepare for astronaut flights to Mars in the decades ahead.

NASA released the first high-quality video of a spacecraft landing on Mars, a three-minute trailer showing the enormous orange and white parachute hurtling open and the red dust kicking up as rocket engines lowered the rover to the surface.

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The footage was so good and the images so breathtaking that members of the rover team said they felt like they were riding along.

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Now that you’ve seen Mars, hear it. Grab some headphones and listen to the first sounds captured by one of my microphones. 🎧https://t.co/JswvAWC2IP #CountdownToMars
— NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) February 22, 2021

Search for signs of ancient microscopic life

The Perseverance rover landed last Thursday near an ancient river delta in Jezero Crater to search for signs of ancient microscopic life. After spending the weekend binge-watching the descent and landing video, the team at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, shared the video at a news conference.

These videos and these images are the stuff of our dreams,” said Al Chen, who was in charge of the landing team.

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Dark rocks. Light rocks. Hole-y rocks.

Ken Williford, @NASAPersevere deputy project scientist, describes some of the initial observations made by @NASAJPL teams about what the rover has captured from the Martian surface: pic.twitter.com/kcDrQMqS3D
— NASA (@NASA) February 22, 2021

Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s science mission chief, said the video and also the panoramic views following touchdown are the closest you can get to landing on Mars without putting on a pressure suit.

The images will help NASA prepare for astronaut flights to Mars in the decades ahead, according to the engineers.