Landing on another planet

I have a general fascination with everything science, so it should come as no surprise that I have been following the newest Mars expedition (dubbed Curiosity).  This newest rover landed on 5 August 2012.  I've seen and read quite a bit about the mission and the successful mission so far, but this newest video of the landing it BLEW ME AWAY.  Just to be clear, what you are watching is a human built craft landing on another planet.  Why this is not major headline news for more than the few minutes it got is still beyond me.

 

The first thing you see is the heat shield being jettisoned.  This shield protected the rover as it descended into the Martian atmosphere.  From the shield's departure, up until about 25 seconds, it appears as if the rover is simply hovering above the surface, but then things get interesting, as it becomes abundantly clear that the craft is actually descending toward the surface of Mars. The swaying is the result of the parachute that is further slowing the descent.  At about 28 seconds, as the parachute sways a bit more, we start to really notice how close we are getting to the surface.  At about 33 seconds we see plumes of dust at the rocket engines of the sky crane fire.  The sky crane held the rover during it's decent and also is the main way the rover ends up on the surface.  Once the rover is close to the ground, the crane lowers the rover down via several tethers all while hovering (this is where to dust plumes come from).  Soon after this you see one of Curiosity's wheels in the lower right and the rover touches down.  Again, truly amazing!