An incredible shot, and a triumph of human engineering: the package containing the rover descending to the surface of Mars via parachute, as seen by the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Wrap your brain around this: here is a picture taken by a machine orbiting another planet, reprogrammed by engineers and scientists hundreds of millions of kilometers away using math and science pioneered centuries ago, so that it could catch the fleeting view of another machine we humans flung across space, traveling hundreds of million of kilometers to another world at mind-bending speeds, only to gently – and perfectly – touch down on the surface mere minutes later.

Image credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

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