During Curiosity’s journey to Mars, it was carried by something
called a cruise stage: a combination of propulsion systems, fuel
tanks, and other equipment required to guide the rover to its
destination. On the way down, though, all that stuff made a bit
of mess. Just before the cruise stage hit Mars’s atmosphere, the
fuel tanks and propulsion systems were dumped — along with two
165-pound blocks of tungsten ballast — to smooth the
aerodynamics on the final approach. This picture shows the site
at which all that extraneous baggage landed, some 50 miles away
from Curiosity’s landing site. These pictures were captured by
the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and the debris has clearly left
some prominent scars on the planet. It’s not all bad, though:
because NASA knew a ton of information about the objects that
hit the planet — how much they weighed, how fast they were
moving, that kind of thing — it can analyse the images and
impact dynamics to learn more about the atmosphere of Mars.
Clever. [NASA via Popular Scie