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This high five looks like it isn't going to connect AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes
mars landing
PHOTOS: "Touchdown confirmed!" Celebrations as NASA rover lands on Mars
It took eight years of work, more than €2 billion, and just a bit of luck, but Curiosity touched down on Mars just after 6.30am Irish time.
12.13pm, 6 Aug 2012
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IT TOOK EIGHT years of hard work, more than €2 billion, and just a bit of luck but NASA’s Curiosity probe finally touched down on the surface of Mars in the early hours of this morning.
“Touchdown confirmed,” said engineer Allen Chen. “We’re safe on Mars”.
US President Barack Obama thanked the NASA employees who had made the “remarkable accomplishment a reality”. ”Tonight, on the planet Mars, the United States of America made history,” he tweeted.
One NASA worker described the “seven minutes of terror” as the rover attempted to make its landing after entering the Martian atmosphere.
The most difficult part of the operation was when Curiosity had to stabilise before an overhead crane placed it onto the Martian soil in an operation that had never before been conducted.
The car-sized robot will spend the next 98 weeks on a mission to search for signs of life on the Red Planet.
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Scientists have previously found signs that water existed on the planet, suggesting that some form of life may have existed on Earth’s nearest neighbour at some point in the past.
The Curiosity rover will continue to tweet its activities from its Twitter account – manned by employees of the Mars Science Laboratory - which has accumulated more than half a million followers since it started its journey more than nine months ago.
Understandably the people who worked on the project were jubilant. Here's how things looked at the control room in Pasadena in California as news came through that Curiosity had touched down:
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I am really looking forward to seeing Dad tomorrow, except on What’sApp video I haven’t seen him since 6th March, this is the longest we have ever been apart.
@Brianán McBride: I’m getting to see my mum on Wednesday – first time since late February as her nursing home locked down really early. Feels so long ago now. Hope your visit is brilliant Brianan & that your dad stays well xx
Of course not all nursing homes are interpreting the changes in the same way. The one my dad is in is still only doing window visits and even next week it is a single person as the nominated contact who may get in subject to whatever management decide this week. Not easy.
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