After travelling eight-and-a-half months and 352 million miles, NASA rover Curiosity landed on Mars at 5.33 GMT (1.33 EDT) this morning. The high-tech craft hit the top of the Martian atmosphere at 13,000mph, and was then slowly lowered by a radical floating 'sky crane' before gently arriving in a massive crater. The news was greeted with cheers and shouts in Nasa's Pasadena Mission Control, and within seconds the craft had sent back the first pictures of its new home. ubilant scientists hugged, wept and distributed Mars bars to each other as mission controllers confirmed the landing. 'Touchdown confirmed', controllers said. 'We are wheels down on Mars. Oh, my God.' Nasa Administrator Charles Bolden hailed the success as a big step towards sending men to the red planet.'Today, the wheels of Curiosity have begun to blaze the trail for human footprints on Mars,' he said.
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