Mars Rover Successfully Lands

One of the first pictures Curiosity sent back to Earth.
Image: NASA

Mars sunset taken by Spirit. 
Image: NASA

Curiosity, NASA's latest Mars Rover, successfully landed on Mars last night and sent its first pictures within minutes of landing, making it a very successfully mission.  Many more pictures will be received in the next two years as Curiosity roams a huge crater on Mars, searching for the key essentials for life.  Curiosity actually has 17 cameras equipped on it so more, and better pictures will be sent.  Curiosity joins Opportunity, another NASA rover that is currently still roaming the martian planet.  Spirit, another rover launched around the same time as Opportunity, became stuck a couple years ago and NASA ended up losing communication and scrapping that mission.  Both of those rovers were very successful as they gathered useful data, took amazing pictures, and outlasted their expected lifetime.  This may be one of the last missions you'll see from NASA due to funding cuts. It's very unfortunate that funding was cut to them. This is one of the better things we Americans pay for.