NASA opened a new chapter in the history of interplanetary exploration on Monday when its $2.5 billion nuclear-powered robot Curiosity beamed back pictures from the surface of Mars.

The one-ton mobile lab is the largest rover ever sent to Mars, and its high-speed landing was the most daring to date, using a rocket-powered sky crane to lower the six-wheeled vehicle gently to the Red Planet's surface.

"Touchdown confirmed," said a member of mission control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory as scientists hugged each other and the room erupted in cheers late Sunday. "We are wheels down on Mars. Oh, my God."

Several images of the car-sized rover and its sophisticated toolkit designed to hunt for signs that life once existed there have come back to NASA since the landing occurred at 10:32 pm Sunday on the US West Coast (0532 GMT Monday).

Among them was dusty, black and white footage showing the shadow of the rover on the Martian surface and a picture taken from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter that showed the rover from above as it was lowered by parachute.

The nuclear-powered rover is now set for a two-year mission to explore the Red Planet, including a long climb up a mountain to analyze sediment layers that are up to a billion years old.

Project scientist John Grotzinger said it may be a year before the rover arrives at the mountain in the center of the planet's Gale Crater, as scientists first take a close look at soil and rock samples inside the crater.

According to NASA chief engineer Miguel San Martin, the rover touched down inside the planned landing ellipse that spanned 12 by four miles (20 by six kilometers) at the foot of the mountain.

Further data in the coming days will give scientists a better idea of exactly where the rover landed.

Initial checks on the instruments on board have also come back positive, NASA said.

When the landing was announced after a tense, seven-minute entry, descent and landing, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory filled with jubilation as the mission team cheered and exchanged Mars chocolate bars.

President Barack Obama described the landing as "an unprecedented feat of technology that will stand as a point of national pride far into the future."

And Charles Bolden, the NASA administrator, applauded all the other nations -- including France, Canada, Finland, Spain, Russia and Germany -- whose scientists contributed to experiments on board the rover's Mars Science Lab.

Obama's science adviser John Holdren described the landing as "an enormous step forward in planetary exploration."*AFP

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