Curiosity, the roving probe sent by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to search for signs of potential life on Mars, has been sending many more signals from the Red Planet than originally planned.
The giant parachute Curiosity used to slow its descent towards the surface of Mars back on August 6, 2012, is flapping away in the Martian breeze.
The research team that manages one of the instruments, the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, on the Martian Reconnaissance Orbiter circling the planet, this week released a series of photos of Curiosity's parachute over the course of five months. (Click here to see the series of photos.)
Even though Mars' atmosphere is about 100-times thinner than Earth's, meaning the wind there even at its strongest likely wouldn't knock a visiting Earthling down, it's apparently still been vigorous enough to keep the parachute moving
Sometime between Sep. 8 and Nov. 30 of last year, "there was a major change in which the parachute extension to the southeast (lower right) was moved inward, so the parachute covers a smaller area," explained Alfred McEwen, a planetary geologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson and the principal investigator for the imaging experiment.
McEwen said another windy event sometime between Dec. 16 and Jan. 13 caused the parachute to shift to the southeast.
Aside from being a, well, curiosity, the observed weather patterns and their effect on the rover's chute help explain why the parachutes used by the Viking lander in 1976 are still visible to this day from orbit: Windy events have been periodically dusting off the bright parachutes.
The crews managing the Mars rovers back here on Earth have also discovered the chutes they've sent to the Red Planet maker pretty good wind socks.
The Mars Science Laboratory parachute was the largest ever used for a Mars landing, according to data posted online by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Pasadena, Calif. Development center that developed, built and is now managing the Mars rovers.
When fully open during descent through the atmosphere, the chute had a diameter of 51 feet. A gap between the white and orange-hued sections of the material prevented the chute from being torn during descent.
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