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"It's like a crime scene photo," said Sarah Milkovich, a NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientist. The parachute appeared to be inflated, and the rocket stage that unspooled the cables crashed 2,100 feet from the landing site. Earlier this week, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter caught Curiosity sailing through the Martian skies under a parachute. It was only the second time a spacecraft has been photographed on a parachute; the first was Phoenix during its descent to the surface. The nuclear-powered, six-wheel Curiosity will spend the next two years chiseling into rocks and scooping up soil at Gale Crater to determine whether the environment ever had the right conditions for microbes to thrive. It will spend a chunk of its time driving to Mount Sharp where images from space reveal signs of past water on the lower flanks. It'll be several weeks before it takes its first drive and flexes its robotic arm. Since landing, engineers have been busy performing health checkups on its systems and instruments. Over the next several days, it was poised to send back crisper pictures of its surroundings including a panorama. The rover was "still in great shape," mission manager Michael Watkins said.
[Associated
Press;
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