After traveling eight-and-a-half months and 352 million miles, NASA rover Curiosity landed on Mars at 5.33 GMT 1:33 Eastern Time this morning.

The high-tech craft hit the top of the Martian atmosphere at 13,000mph, and was then slowly lowered by a radical floating 'sky crane' inside a massive crater.

First pictures sent back within seconds.

Curiosity will search for the ingredients of life on the red planet's surface using a scoop to dig into the soil.