Touchdown: Last night, NASA's Curiosity Landed on Mars!

Curiosity landed at 10:32 p.m. Aug. 5, PDT, (1:32 a.m. EDT, Aug. 6) near the foot of a mountain three miles (about five kilometers) tall inside Gale Crater, 96 miles (nearly 155 kilometers) 7in diameter. During a nearly two-year prime mission, the rover will investigate whether the region has ever offered conditions favorable for microbial life, including the chemical ingredients for life.

The mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The rover was designed, developed and assembled at JPL, a division of Caltech.

Source: www.nasa.gov

NASA precisely positioned a second satellite orbiting Mars to capture the split second when Curiosity fell from the skies.
Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech

MSL team celebrating inside the Spaceflight Operations Facility for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover at Jet Propulsion Laboratory after receiving the first few images from the Curiosity rover, in Pasadena, California .
Source: Reuters

MSL Flight Director Keith Comeaux (R) celebrates with Martin Greco after the Mars science rover Curiosity's successful landing, at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California .

Source: Reuters

Images released by NASA show the 'Curiosity' rover's first glimpses of Mars.

Source: NASA