Nasa Mars landing: Curiosity touches down on the surface of the Red Planet (13pics)

The Atlas V rocket carrying Curiosity blasted off from Cape Canaveral bound for Mars on Nevember 26, 2011

 

The $2.5 billion mission saw the one-ton, six-wheeled, nuclear-powered vehicle blaze through the pink Martian sky and touch down inside an ancient crater. After a journey that had lasted eight months, and covered 352 million miles of space, Curiosity performed a series of aerial acrobatics before landing safely near the equator and began sending images back to Earth. This is the first image taken by Nasa's Curiosity rover from the surface of Mars.

Curiosity has an array of sophisticated chemistry and geology gadgets for analysing soil and rocks. Those include a laser gun that can hit a rock from 23ft, creating a spark. The spectral image from the spark is then analysed by a special telescope to establish its chemical composition.

Mars Weather Map, Aug. 4. A map is generated each day to forecast weather conditions for the entry, descent and landing of Nasa's Curiosity rover

The crater includes a three-mile high mountain, Mount Sharp, the base of which appears rich in minerals that formed in the presence of water. Curiosity will look there for basic ingredients essential for life, including carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous, sulphur and oxygen.

Curiosity's landing site is inside the Gale Crater. It was picked because it may once have been a large lake.

As it neared the atmosphere of Mars the Mini Cooper-sized spacecraft accelerated with the pull of gravity and made a fiery entry at a speed of 13,200 mph, 17 times the speed of sound. It was then slowed down with the help of a giant supersonic parachute. A hovering, jet-powered sky crane, then descended towards the surface, lowering Curiosity to the ground on three 25ft nylon tethers. It landed upright on all six wheels and the sky crane cut the cords before powering away and crashing at a safe distance.

Curiosity is Nasa's seventh landing on Earth's neighbour but the most ambitious and expensive. Success had been far from certain and Nasa had labelled the entry, descent and landing the Seven Minutes of Terror.

Minutes later Curiosity sent back pictures showing one of it wheels, and its own shadow on the Martian surface.

Jubilant scientists hugged, wept and distributed Mars chocolate bars to each other as one of them announced: Touchdown confirmed. We are wheels down on Mars. Oh, my God.

Adam Steltzner (R) celebrates the successful landing of the Mars science rover Curiosity, inside the Spaceflight Operations Facility at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California

Spectators in New York's Time Square cheer as they watch the announcement of the Mars science rover Curiosity, successfully land on the planet Mars, in New York

Steve Collins waits during the Seven Minutes of Terror as the rover approaches the surface of Mars