As a Martian lander descends toward the Red Planet’s surface, when can its parachute be safely deployed? Open it too early, while the lander is hurtling through the atmosphere, and it might tear off — but open it too late and the lander might not slow down enough to prevent a catastrophic crash landing. There are seemingly endless possibilities in this complex conundrum. One way to solve this puzzle is to use a computer to simulate the Mars landing, which is exactly how students in 16.0002/18.0002 (Introduction to Computational Science…
