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March is Women's History Month!

Curiosity And Those 7 Minutes Of Terror: Once More With Feeling

OK. Sure. You have seen this video before. Maybe once. Maybe 10 times (that would be me).

Now, however, the outrageous bit of engineering behind Curiosity's landing has proven its worth. That means you can watch this Hollywood-worthy piece of CGI one more time with a new piece of understanding.

It worked. The dang thing worked!

However cool this video looks it must have been way cooler in real life, a "life" going down millions of miles away.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Adam Frank was a contributor to the NPR blog 13.7: Cosmos & Culture. A professor at the University of Rochester, Frank is a theoretical/computational astrophysicist and currently heads a research group developing supercomputer code to study the formation and death of stars. Frank's research has also explored the evolution of newly born planets and the structure of clouds in the interstellar medium. Recently, he has begun work in the fields of astrobiology and network theory/data science. Frank also holds a joint appointment at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, a Department of Energy fusion lab.