After travelling eight-and-a-half months and 352 million miles, Nasa’s rover Curiosity finally landed on Mars at 5.32 GMT (1.32 EDT) 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’ before gently arriving in a massive crater. The news was greeted with cheers and shouts in Nasa’s Pasadena Mission Control, and within seconds the craft had sent back the first pictures of its new home. Jubilant scientists hugged, wept and distributed Mars bars to each other as mission controllers confirmed the landing. ‘Touchdown confirmed’, controllers said. ‘We are wheels down on Mars. Oh, my God.’  The rover even has a Twitter feed associated with it, announcing its arrival by saying: “I’m safely on the surface of Mars. GALE CRATER I AM IN YOU!!!” Nasa Administrator Charles Bolden hailed the success as a big step towards sending men to the red planet.Today, the wheels of Curiosity have begun to blaze the trail for human footprints on Mars,’ he said.‘We’re on Mars again, and it’s absolutely incredible. ‘It doesn’t get any better than this.’ The mission was hailed by President Obama, who said ‘Tonight, on the planet Mars, the United States of America made history. ‘The successful landing of Curiosity – the most sophisticated roving laboratory ever to land on another planet – marks an unprecedented feat of technology that will stand as a point of national pride far into the future.  ‘It proves that even the longest of odds are no match for our unique blend of ingenuity and determination.’ The trickiest moment of the landing came in a truly out of this world gymnastics routine during Curiosity’s ‘seven minutes of terror’ plummet through the atmosphere. When the rover had safely navigated its landing and touched down on the face of the Red Planet, NASA scientists exploded with delight and some even broke down in tears, overwhelmed at the success of the decades-long project. Mail Online