
After a nail-biting descent through the thin Martian atmosphere, the biggest and most sophisticated Mars rover so far, Curiosity, landed successfully last night inside its target zone within the huge Gale crater.
The “seven minutes of terror” during the descent turned into a celebration as signals received from the rover indicated it had performed a virtually flawless landing – amazing considering that the technique, using the “sky crane” to gently lower the rover to the surface, had never been used before until now.
See Examiner.com for the full article.