Mars rover sends home movie of daredevil descent to landing on red planet

A portion of a panorama made up of individual images taken by the Navigation Cameras, or Navcams, aboard NASA?s Perseverance Mars rover shows the Martian landscape February 20, 2021. Images taken February 20, 2021. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Handout via REUTERS

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - NASA scientists on Monday unveiled first-of-a-kind home movies of last week's' daredevil Mars rover landing, vividly showing its supersonic parachute inflation over the red planet and a rocket-powered hovercraft lowering the science lab on wheels to the surface.

The footage was recorded on Thursday by a series of cameras mounted at different angles of the multi-stage spacecraft as it carried the rover, named Perseverance, through the thin Martian atmosphere to a gentle touchdown inside a vast basin called Jezero Crater.