Voice of America News reports: “The U.S. space agency, NASA, says its Mars Science Laboratory has made a successful landing on the red planet.

There will be several weeks of testing before NASA turns Curiosity loose to roam about the Martian surface, looking for signs that the planet once might have had conditions suitable to support life.

But first the scientists and engineers at the Joint Propulsion Laboratory near Los Angeles did a little celebrating.

NASA described Curiosity’s plunge through the Martian atmosphere as ‘seven minutes of terror,’ but the landing, which engineers said was the most complex ever attempted, proceeded flawlessly.

Moments after touchdown the craft sent a picture back to Earth, showing one of its six wheels on the planet’s surface.

Curiosity will spend the next two years analyzing rock samples, weather and radiation levels to see whether conditions on Mars have been favorable for microbial life…” (“And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory” – Luke 21:25 – 27.)