No, nothing to do with a Space Elevator, but everything to do with coolness…

This is a picture (already seen by many) of the Mars Phoenix probe, descending to the Planet Mars on Sunday.  You can clearly see the deployed parachute and the probe underneath it.  It was taken by the HiRise camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

As one person put it; “This was a speeding bullet taking a picture of another speeding bullet.”

Many people seem to love to pick on NASA, but as I’ve written before, we too often take their accomplishments, their many real and spectacular accomplishments, for granted.

Congratulations NASA and all of the other organizations that assisted in this effort!

(Picture from here – click on the thumbnail for a larger version)