Entering a planet's atmosphere is a dangerous maneuver for any spacecraft, as it must withstand the intense frictional heat generated by high-speed contact with atoms and molecules.
That's why landers and rovers have heat shields.
A heat shield "breathes" when it hits the atmosphere. The surface of the shield begins to burn away, in a process called ablation. To mimic the hypersonic speed of a spacecraft's entry, a team of researchers led by Francesco Panerai, a professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering, experimented with heat shields in the Plasmatron X wind tunnel at the Center for Hypersonics and Entry System Studies, which is housed a few blocks from the university's campus.
