The Curiosity rover landed just 200 metres fromNASA's targeted landing site on Mars, dpa quoted the US space agency as saying on Friday. Curiosity's exact landing site was determined after an analysis of data sent back by the rover. After a 560-kilometre flight from Earth such a result is surprisingly precise, scientist Steve Sell said at apress conference in Pasadena, California, home of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The rover has sent about a megabyte of data from the landing back to Earth and still has about 100 megabytes left to send. It has also been busy snapping photos and sending them back to mission control, and NASA unveiled a 360-degree, colour panorama shot that gives a more complete view of the landing site. Other photos show surprisingly large debris on the rover itself that had apparently been kicked up from the ground during its landing on Monday. In the next several days, engineers will upload new software to the rover for use in its exploration of the Martian surface. -- SPA
