A NASA spacecraft has sent back the first historic pictures of an unexplored region of Mars.
The Mars Phoenix lander touched down in the far north of the Red Planet, after a 680 million-km (423 million-mile) journey from Earth. The probe is equipped with a robotic arm to dig for water-ice thought to be buried beneath the surface.
It will begin examining the site for evidence of the building blocks of life in the next few days. A signal confirming the lander had reached the surface was received at 2353 GMT on 25 May (1953 EDT; 0053 BST on 26 May).
Engineers and scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California clapped and cheered when the landing signal came through. "Phoenix has landed - welcome to the northern plain of Mars," a flight controller announced. The final seven minutes of the probe's 10-month journey to Mars were regarded as the hardest part of the mission.
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