NASA scientists celebrated the safe landing of a £1.6 billion robot rover the size of a Mini Cooper on Mars in one of the most daring and difficult interplanetary operations ever attempted.
It is hoped the rover – named Curiosity – will establish whether or not the planet's environment supported life in the past.
Dr John Bridges, from the University of Leicester, one of two British scientists leading teams on the mission, wrote in a live blog from mission control: "Lots of very happy and excited people in this room. What an opportunity we have now to explore this fascinating planet."
Curiosity was lowered to the surface on three nylon tethers suspended from a hovering "sky crane" kept airborne with retro rockets. An expected signal confirming it had landed was received on Earth at 6.31am UK time yesterday. There were scenes of jubilation at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
Curiosity can now start its 98-week mission, exploring a Martian crater that billions of years ago may have been filled with water. The nuclear powered rover is bristling with sophisticated technology designed to discover if life may have existed on the planet.
It is twice as long and five times as heavy as the twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity, which landed on Mars in 2004.
Curiosity was too heavy to have its landing cushioned by bouncing air bags – the method used for the previous rovers. Instead, scientists came up with the "sky crane" solution.
After entering the Martian atmosphere at 13,200mph, the capsule containing the rover was first slowed by friction and then a supersonic parachute.
Closer to the ground, the descent stage carrying Curiosity was released, firing retro rockets positioned around its rim. Above the landing site in Gale Crater, the rover was dropped to the surface on 25ft tethers.
There is geological evidence of past water at the target of Gale Crater.
Proof Curiosity was on Mars came with images showing the planet's rock-strewn surface and one of the rover's wheels.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article