Image of tire tracks on Mars with an unusual green tone. . Taken by Perseverance on February 4th.
The First Ever Real-Time Video from Another Planet
When you watch this video, if you find yourself thinking of the Apollo moon landings— here is why: this is the first real-time video taken from another world since 1972, and this is the first ever taken on another planet.
Most “video” you see from other planetary missions are actually animations. Multiple image frames taken over long periods of time. Then someone registers the images to one another to smooth out the motion and then you have animated photographic video. Additionally, these seconds long clips are usually of events that actually took hours or even days to play out.
That being said, seeing the Martian surface move below in real time, the parachute deploying against an alien sky, and the rover being dropped to the surface from the Sky Crane is absolutely amazing. Perhaps my favorite moment is when the Sky Crane flies off behind a cloud of dust looks just like (and actually is) an alien spacecraft visiting an alien world.