HiRISE is awesome.

So by now I imagine everyone has seen the absolutely incredible picture of the Phoenix lander parachuting to the surface of Mars as caught by the HiRISE orbiter. Up until now I had only seen the close up, but while investigating the HiRISE site I was immediately greeted by the much larger picture.

On the left is the closeup, click on the image or the link above to see the wide view. It is thoroughly breathtaking.

Now in the blown up picture the lander looks like it's falling into the big crater named Heimdall that dominates the view, when in truth it's actually around 20 kilometers in front of it, landing on the nice flat ground!

I highly reccomend a browse of the HiRISE site if you've not been there already, it's full of the most amazing things you'll see for a while.

I can't exactly let this post go without also showing the image of the Phoenix lander on the surface too, so here you go!

Click the image for the bigger picture, also featuring the parachute, heatshield and other associated bits.