A humbling and character-building experience

It was a week ago today that NASA successfully added another member to the robot population of Mars. It was fantastic to watch the landing, also a strange reminder of how far away everything is in space. The sequence of manoeuvres for the landing itself takes 7 minutes—known as the 'seven minutes of terror'. However, because of the distance, and the finite speed of light, there's an 11 minute delay. So when we're all eagerly watching the landing sequence, it's already happened! Its fate has been sealed. Carl Sagan said 'astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience' and following the progress of Perseverance helps see what he means.

Here are the amazing onboard camera views of Perseverance's landing—and that's just the start.

Video Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech